Slumdog Millionaire gets an (unnecessary?) R rating

The big success of this year's festival circuit proved to be Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, which has since vaulted to a privileged place in the Fall’s packed release slate. The crowd-rousing movie got the usual comparisons to the Little Miss Sunshines and Junos of festivals past, but now the MPAA has put an unexpected strain on its ability to become the season’s crossover hit.

That would be an R rating, for “some violence, disturbing images and language.” The movie, due Nov. 12, was widely believed to be more in line with Boyle’s dark but still family-safe Millions than the otherwise harsh library (including Trainspotting and 28 Days Later) that made the Scottish veteran famous.

Although they concede that it sometimes takes on the raw vision of Boyle’s other work, early fans of the movie have rallied around the web with harsh words for the MPAA, a familiar target of communal scorn. The Dark Knight’s PG-13 has come up more than once.

In an interview with Cinematical, one of the loudest opponents of the rating, Boyle says he too was disappointed by the news. "We all agreed that it would be a PG-13 or less," he said. "And so I shot the film very deliberately to achieve that certificate, and I’m very disappointed because there’s very little actual violence in the film at all. But the response was that the journey of the film was too intense—and then you think, but that’s the job! What’s wrong with somebody wanting to watch an intense journey?"

Reviewed with obvious enthusiasm when it premiered, Slumdog follows two lower-class brothers in India, one of whom eventually ends up on the nation’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Distributor Fox Searchlight has shown no signs that it will appeal the decision (a process that's not necessarily a dead end), which some have speculated is because the studio worried it would miss the movie's Nov. 12 launch.

Elsewhere, new footage from the film has also popped up online, a teaser from the London Film Festival. There should be an official trailer soon, but for now, this will have to do: