So with the film officially getting released finally, it was now time for a strategic marketing scheme. Slumdog Millionaire was first shown at the Telluride Film Festival in late August, and then at the Toronto Film Fest a week later. At both places, the film received unanimous praise and even received the People’s Choice Award at the latter.

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Not everybody loves Slumdog. Much like your favorite band that got too big, many indie film sites have abandoned the picture and moved on to other movies. An mild indie backlash was probably inevitable [sic].

Above: quotes from a post at The Playlist breaking down Slumdog Millionaire’s bumpy road from target of pre-production bidding war, to its loss of initial distributor Warner Independent, to virtual Best Picture sure thing. This is a useful endeavor. It would be more useful if it were a little more accurate.

I’ll only quibble with the bits to which I can quickly provide counterevidence. First: the praise at Telluride was not unanimous. Kevin Buist may have been one of the few to initial question the film’s quality, but question it he did, right from the beginning.

Maybe there are indie film sites that said they liked Slumdog initially and then participated in the backlash, but I don’t think I read them. If such about-facers exist, I’d be willing to bet that they are less prevalent and definitely less influential than critics who find it harder to think than to follow the herd.

It drives me crazy when fans of a film like this attempt to rewrite history by saying that everyone liked it until it was a big deal. The implication is that anyone who *doesn’t* like it could *only* not like it because it’s popular, and in this case, that’s just not a valid argument. It wasn’t valid in the case of Little Miss Sunshine or Juno, either — both films that weren’t vile but which, via their coding as “underdogs”, were mistakenly treated as above critique.

Look, I’m glad Slumdog triumphed over its threatened direct-to-DVD limbo, and that in itself is probably Good For Cinema, even if it isn’t good cinema. But it helps no one to pretend like the film’s few detractors either a) don’t exist, or b) are deriving their critique from some hipster reflex to hate on the mainstream.