Written By: Aditya Sharma
Disclaimer: spoilers ahead!
In the first two minutes of Netflix’s “The White Tiger” we hear the opening to Punjabi MC and Jay-Z’s “Beware of The Boys” and see a man dressed as a Maharajah swerve out of the way of an oncoming cow on the streets of New Delhi. Welcome to India, folks!
Based on the 2008 debut novel by Aravind Adiga, “The White Tiger” revolves around Balram Halwari (Adrash Gourav), an entrepreneur living in Bangalore who is drafting an email to Chinese Premier Wen Jiaobo on the eve of his visit to India. In the email, Balram makes the case for investment in Indian entrepreneurship and takes Mr. Wen, and by extension the audience, through the story of his life. Balram’s story seems to have all the indications of a classic rags-to-riches tale, as he describes his journey from what he calls “an India of darkness” to “an India of light.”
As a young man desperate to earn a living outside his village, Balram lands a job as a driver for his wealthy landlord’s youngest son, Ashok (Rajkummar Rao), and his Indian American wife Pinky (Priyanka Chopra Jonas). Despite officially being a driver, Balram is treated as a servant. He is repeatedly subjugated, harangued and disrespected by the family he serves, but still stays in his place with his nose down. As the film progresses, however, tensions build and begin to drive Balram and Ashok’s family towards a much darker place.
At this point, It is impossible to deny the narrative parallels to Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite”: a poor man starts working for a wealthy family by becoming their driver and calamity ensues.
However, It is Balram’s relationship to his superiors that differentiates this film from “Parasite,” and from a standard underdog story. As a lower-caste citizen, Balram has been taught from a young age that his identity in life is as a servant to those of a higher caste. But he also has his own ambitions for success and is unable to submit entirely to that imposed definition. Therefore, unlike the Kim family in “Parasite”, Balram is not just using his employers as a means of upward mobility in society, he truly believes to some extent that his duty is to be of service to these people who treat him as expendable. He genuinely does not know if “we loathe our masters behind a facade of love, or [if] we love them behind a facade of loathing.”
That is the inner conflict that slowly comes to a boil during the first three quarters of the film, and it is a slow burn. We see Balram bear the brunt of all the mistakes and malpractices that surround Ashok’s family. Each time, we wonder if this will be the one where he has his triumphant defiance of authority, where he casts down his rags and asserts his self-worth in a display of redemption that will carry us into the film’s conclusion. That is what we are taught to expect from a rags-to-riches story, but it never comes. As Balram says, “I was trapped in the rooster coop, and don’t believe for a second there’s a million rupee game show you can win to get out of it.”
Indeed, this film is a slap in the face to anyone expecting another “Slumdog Millionaire.” There is no cathartic liberation that befalls Balram. Instead, we see a man slowly fall apart in his inability to gather any agency over his own life, driven to the end of his wits by the tug-of-war between his identity and his aspirations.
“The White Tiger” is certainly not without its faults. Ashok and Pinky are both individuals who have spent ample time in the United States and who, having grown used to life in the West, initially object to Balram’s abuse by the other members of Ashok’s family. But these seemingly high morals don’t manifest in any practical way. Pinky makes a rushed exit midway through the film, and Ashok slowly assimilates back in with the rest of his family. Adrash Gourav’s commanding performance as Balram, however, is more than enough to carry the audience to the end of the story, an uncompromising story of identity and ambition in a country of endless prospect.
“The White Tiger” is available to stream on Netflix.