We’ve all heard the numbers: Eight Academy Awards, five Critics’ Choice awards, four Golden Globes and countless other nominations and honors for this independent masterpiece. Slumdog Millionaire took the movie industry by storm with its slew of unknown actors (to Americans) and original love story. With all the buildup, I had to see for myself what all the hype was about.

Slumdog Millionaire weaves the story of two Indian brothers, Jamal (Dev Patel) and Salim (Madhur Mittal), orphaned thanks to the civil unrest of religious intolerance. The film follows the two as they lose/find each other and fight/come together throughout their youth and adolescence. While Jamal and Salim choose different paths, their lives are always brought together by Jamal’s boyhood love, Latika (Freida Pinto). The movie focuses around Jamal’s unlikely run on India’s version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” with flashbacks to the circumstances that led him there.

 But movies that win tons of awards never end happily, right? They have to be authentic and realistic and yada, yada, yada. Just look at the history of Academy Award winners for best picture. In No Country for Old Men the good guy dies and the bad guy gets away, in Million Dollar Baby Hillary Swank’s character dies tragically, in Titanic Jack freezes to death while his love, Rose, lives on. That just seems to be the way things work. Surprisingly, Slumdog opts for a different approach. Although excruciatingly depressing at times, in the end all things seem to work out for the best for each character.

Slumdog Millionaire depicts an original love story with many layers that is well worth all the hype and awards. I hesitate to give Slumdog four stars and will stick with my judgment for one simple reason: I usually reserve my four star picks for great movies that I look forward to seeing again and again. Slumdog Millionaire was an enjoyable experience that tugged at my heartstrings from start to finish. I highly recommend it, but don’t feel an overwhelming desire to see it again.