Spiritual Lessons From the 2009 Oscar Nominees

'Slumdog Millionaire': Life's Written by a Larger Hand

10 nominations, including Best Picture

India's an easy target for "I-told-you-so" atheists. The country's been torn by religious strife for decades, and "Slumdog" doesn't hide the country's sometimes messy manifestations of spirituality. Jamal, the movie's main character, loses his Muslim mother to a Hindu mob, and he tells a game-show host that, were it not for Rama (a Hindu god) and Allah, he'd still have his mother. Considering Jamal's hard-knock life, it's little wonder he questions the concept of a beneficent deity.

But each troublesome knot in Jamal's life turns out to be a stitch in a much larger fabric—a tapestry that shows him standing, center stage, in an unlikely fairy tale. In the end, the movie's makers suggest that Jamal's saga—indeed his life—was "written" by a much larger hand.