Lion (PG) Directed by Garth Davis 4/5

BASED on an incredible true story, this powerful two-part drama is an uplifting yet heart-wrenching tale about a young man’s painstaking search to be reunited with his long-lost Indian mother and his family.

It’s impossible not be moved by this visually stunning adaptation of Saroo Brierley’s A Long Way Home, which tells the story of how five-year-old Saroo (Sunny Pawar) fell asleep on a train while waiting for his older brother and awoke in Kolkata, thousands of miles from his home village.

After surviving many trials and tribulations on the streets, he ends up in an orphanage where he is adopted by a couple from Australia (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham) and goes to live there.

Twenty-five years later, with very little to go on but helped by the the advent of Google Earth, he embarks on an all-consuming hunt for his mother and brother while slowly withdrawing from his adoptive parents and his girlfriend (Rooney Mara).

Pawar is a revelation as Saroo. On his acting debut, he carries the first half of Lion and delivers an astoundingly complex performance, beyond his years. He’s the real star of the film, which he completely steals from Dev Patel — who plays the older Saroo — and Kidman as Sue Brierley, his adoptive mother.

Kidman has described this as her love letter to her children, both the two she adopted with her ex Tom Cruise and the two biological daughters she has with her current husband Keith Urban — and she delivers her most gut-wrenching and heartfelt personal portrayal to date, while Patel excels as the Aussie-raised Saroo.

This is an impressive, multilayered debut feature by director Garth Davis, whose emotional core is punctuated by Greig Fraser’s exquisite cinematography. And it explores the complexities of adoption without pulling any punches.

There wasn’t a dry eye at the screening I attended but this is nonetheless an empowering and uplifting film as Saroo found his family and now has two loving mothers.

Most of all, though, Lion is a memorable tribute to the resilience of the human spirit.