While critics can’t rave enough about Danny Boyle’s Indian love story Slumdog Millionaire, the MPAA has been a little harsh on it. All the best picture, best director, best screenplay and best music awards from groups like the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will have a hard time pulling in viewers deterred by the R-rating. It’s a crying shame—Slumdog Millionaire is a film the whole world should see, even with the brutal street scenes and abject poverty. A little dose of reality never hurt anyone – on the contrary it could make us all more compassionate and concerned.

Yet the folks behind Slumdog Millionaire are not letting the R-rating for their much-celebrated film dampen their spirits. And why should they? It’s the odds-on favorite going into Oscar season and the kudos are coming fast and thick. I sat at their table at the Critics Choice Awards, and they told me they were surprised, but not concerned about the R-rating. As a matter of fact, Director Danny Boyle was open to re-editing the film when the rating came in.

Producer Christian Colson told me he was amazed and grateful to Fox Searchlight for not insisting that they re-cut the film for a gentler PG-13 rating, although Boyle would have gladly done it. He told me Fox Searchlight execs said that if that’s the film they made, that’s the film they would release. The R-rating, Colson was told, had more to do with the graphic violence than anything else. Most of the sexual situations are implied rather than shown.

An R-rating could cost the filmmakers and distributors as much as $100 million in box office receipts. But that’s not dampening the spirits of all involved with the film. I voted for Slumdog in all categories for which is was nominated. The Critics Choice Awards ceremony presented a glorious moment to raise a glass with Colson, Boyle, actress Freida Pinto and writer Simon Beufoy.

Kudos have to go to Fox Searchlight as well. Had Slumdog Millionaire been released by a major studio, it would have been edited back for sure. Only an indie studio (or the indie arm of a major studio) would go forth with such gritty realism and such a stellar film. It’s no wonder that Fox Searchlight has had so many winners over the past few years, Little Miss Sunshine, The Last King of Scotland, Juno and this year, in addition to Slumdog, The Wrestler, to name a few. Here’s to the indies!

 —Lisa Johnson Mandell