As soon as he can Balram manages to get a job driving for the local landlord, who rules over them like a king, promising to send most of his wages back to grandmother.
With devoted service and a few unethical grifts he quickly secures the role of driver and manservant to the landlord's westernised son Ashok (Rajkummar Rao) and his American wife "Pinky" (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) when they travel to Delhi to represent the family's (corrupt) business interests.
Despite the caste divide, Ashok and Pinky treat Balram well if occasionally condescendingly and he works tirelessly in their service.
Then one night something terrible happens and everything changes.
This does a neat trick of showing the hideous inequality in India in a way that's sympathetic to the main characters on both sides of the divide and oddly upbeat for what is essentially a tale of a slave who violently rebels. The landlords are obvious cartoon villains but Ashok and Pinky are sympathetically portrayed, even after they throw Balram aside.
Largely told in flashback it's done with bright colours pacy music and witty cheerful voiceover dialogue. Covering much the same ground as "Parasite" it is a very different kind of polemic, with Balram painting himself as an "entrepreneur" in questioning his role in the master/servant relationship and taking escalating direct action to change it.
The cast are great and you get some really quite funny sections that are pretty dark at the same time.
Highly recommended 9/10, I think this is one that stays below the radar you might have missed.