Hi, kids! Now's the part of the show when I typically slobber all over Danny Boyle, the shapeshifting stylist who knows his way around topics as varied as junkies ("Trainspotting"), zombies ("28 Days Later"), yuppies ("Shallow Grave"), moppets ("Millions"), and astronauts ("Sunshine"). Unless you're getting your pop-culture information from the walls of a cave, you've no doubt heard about Boyle's latest, "Slumdog Millionaire," a vivid, breathless fairy tale about a resourceful orphan who comes of age on the mean streets of Mumbai. The bad news is that the massively ballyhooed "Slumdog Millionaire" seems to be this year's anointed indie, a la eventual Oscar winners "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Juno." The good news is that it's quite safe to believe the hype.

You will wonder whether you're in the right theater when "Slumdog Millionaire" opens with a scene of brutal torture. The young man with his toes hooked up to a car battery is Jamal (smashing newcomer Dev Patel), and he's just done very well on India's version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" Maybe a little too well, in fact, so a police inspector (Irfan Khan, "The Darjeeling Limited") has been called upon to look into how an uneducated street kid was able to get as far as the question valued at 20-million rupees. This is Boyle's clever framing device, as Jamal and his jailor review a tape of the show, question by question, and through flashbacks we learn how Jamal came by some very serendipitous knowledge.

Boyle and co-director Loveleen Tandan weave tense, shiny showdowns between Jamal and the smarmy game-show host (Bollywood fixture Anil Kapoor) throughout gritty interludes, alternately humorous and horrifying, that depict the Dickensian lives of Jamal and his older brother, Salim. The orphaned brothers carved out a hand-to-mouth existence amongst gangsters, grifters, and Fagins, circumstances that left Salim criminally jaded but barely tested the resolve of Jamal, who had his eyes on the prize. She is Latika, a feisty scrapper turned child prostitute turned mob moll. It's all for her, and "Slumdog Millionaire" balances swoony, chaste longing with scenes showing exactly what a little boy might do for an autograph, the unending relevance of Alexandre Dumas, or how conning tourists helped Jamal learn who's on the $100 bill.

All the children who portray our protagonists at various ages do really exceptional work, affecting without having to resort to cloying, but Dev Patel is a star. A sort of David Schwimmer or Jason Biggs type, he boasts a beautifully expressive face, and some of his more riveting game-show scenes feature him merely thinking. Freida Pinto plays adult Latika, almost too gorgeous for this earth, but it isn't hard to buy that she'd fall for Patel's Jamal, initially trying to protect him from her messy reality but unable to resist his unconditional goodness. And though you know how it ends from the very first frame, "Slumdog Millionaire" nonetheless builds to a dizzying crescendo that is as nakedly manipulative as it is absolutely satisfying.

"Slumdog Millionaire" combines the wide-eyed innocence of Boyle's own "Millions" with the breakneck virtuosity of Meirelles' "City of God" to crowd-pleasing effect, but its buzzy sleeper status leaves it ripe for an inevitable backlash. And then there's the Mumbai factor, the bursting city a character unto itself in this film, and recently devastated by acts of jawdropping terror. The closing credits shot in the forever-changed Victoria Terminus are a veritable love letter to Mumbai, a joyful celebration of all things Bollywood, and somehow more affirming than any fairy-tale ending.

Slumdog Millionaire

(R), directed by Danny Boyle

Opens Friday