Rushdie dubs 'Slumdog' ridiculous

03-02-2009 | AP

The controversial British-Indian author publicly criticized the acclaimed film

Panama Star LONDON. British-Indian author Salman Rushdie has attacked the plot of multiple Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" as a "patently ridiculous conceit".

Rushdie wrote in Britain's Guardian newspaper that the central feature of the film -- that a boy from the Mumbai slums manages to succeed on the Indian TV version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" -- "beggars belief."

"This is a patently ridiculous conceit, the kind of fantasy writing that gives fantasy writing a bad name," the author of "The Satanic Verses" said in the article published Saturday.

Rushdie said the central weakness of the film -- which won eight Oscars -- was that it was adapted from a book by Indian diplomat-novelist Vikas Swarup called "Q&A" which is itself "a corny potboiler, with a plot that defies belief."

"It is a plot device faithfully preserved by the film-makers, and lies at the heart of the weirdly renamed Slumdog Millionaire. As a result the film, too, beggars belief," wrote Rushdie.