Every year, there seems to be one film that captures the hearts and imaginations of the public, and this year everyone is talking about Slumdog Millionaire. Based on the true story of a young man from the poorest neighborhoods of Mumbai who wins the top prize in the Indian version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” Slumdog has already won the Golden Globe for Best Picture and is up for the Academy Award in just over two weeks.  And crucial to the movie’s success is the romantic main character, Jamal Malik, played by newcomer Dev Patel.

Just who is this new Hollywood hunk, and is it okay that I wanted to eff him silly when I saw him shirtless in the movie’s first scenes?

Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve got the scoop. Dev was born in England in 1990 (he’s legal!) and had his first big break on the British comedy, Skins. On his Skins cast member blog, Dev thrills us with this titillating update, “Since we last spoke, I have become a sex machine who will bring to you a sensory experience that will blow your feminine mind and titillate your crazy hot body. I am now a sexual master who has complete knowledge of the three positions of love making.” If that’s not an invitation to eff, then you can take down all my Slumdog posters and burn them (actually, just in case, please don’t. I can’t fall asleep at night without a glance at Dev on my ceiling).

Slumdog director Danny Boyle cast Dev based on a suggestion from his daughter, who loved his work on Skins. Boyle said he chose Dev because he was tall and lanky and could really portray the everyman character needed to carry the film. It is precisely this youthful quality that would make Dev such a good eff.  He reminds me of my crushes of yesteryear, the sweet romantic boys who promised to sweep me off my feet and eff me gently for all time. His earnest smile and timeless love for Slumdog‘s heroine, Latika, makes me wish that I, too, could find a good-natured cutie of my own among the throngs of college bros.

Since the movie premiered,  Dev’s fame has skyrocketed. He’s spawned fan sites galore and has attended a dizzying number of awards shows. Though he himself won’t be receiving any Oscars for acting, Dev will be on the red carpet at the Academy Awards to support Slumdog for the 10 statues it stands to collect. Until the big night, I’ll be waiting for Dev, just like Jamal waited for Latika at the train station. And if his film does win the big prize on February 22, I’ll be all ready with my stellar pick-up line: is that an Oscar in your pocket, or are you just the cutest eff in Hollywood right now?

It was my favorite movie in high school, because it made me feel somehow cooler by association. Now I can appreciate it with a little more nuance, but that doesn’t take away from its intense cool and the nostalgia it inspires within me.

Ewan McGregor plays Scottish heroin addict and general ne’er do well Renton in the film, an adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel of the same name. In the face of his addiction and the destructive relationships he forms with his similarly worthless friends, Renton decides to Choose Life after an almost fatal overdose and a series of horrible misfortunes that befall his friends.

The movie shows the ill effects of drug use without ever letting the film become overly maudlin. It is a hyper-realized world that Renton and his friends live in, and director Danny Boyle (who has gone on to make 28 Days Later and A Life Less Ordinary) negotiates this with a really innovative visual style that reflects the frenzy of addiction juxtaposed with the banality of everyday life.

“The streets are awash with drugs for unhappiness and pain,” the movie states; “we pile misery upon misery, heat it up on a spoon and dissolve it.” As entertaining as the film is to watch, it does not shy away from the harsh reality of the subject matter. Renton’s recovery is tainted when he ostensibly betrays his friends and continues in very sporadic drug use. The viewer isn’t confident that, despite everything that he’s gone through and seen, that he won’t use the money he steals to buy smack.

Ultimately, it seems like the movie wants to make a statement on responsibility, on being an adult, and as much as it artfully portrays drug usage, the drugs themselves could be seen as a device. Less optimistically, too, the film asks if people can really ever change, if it is within our nature to or within the nature of society to let us.

The film begins with Renton’s voice, like the nagging voice of society, urging you to choose life, choose a job, choose a career, choose a family. It sets a tone with which we as people on the cusp of adulthood can’t help but empathize. And in lies the brilliance of the film. No matter how awful the characters seem at times, we want them to succeed because we want to succeed. In some way (obviously not to the level that Renton and co. do) we don’t want to necessarily choose life, we want to live in comfortable denial, whatever that means to us individually.

Trainspotting is a classic in every way, and still immensely relevant here, almost twelve years after it was released. And Ewan McGregor is still the sexiest heroin addict to ever hit the big screen.