Sydney, Mar 3 : Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire's plot is "patently ridiculous conceit", says British-Indian author Salman Rushdie.

According to Rushdie's article in Britain''s Guardian newspaper, the central feature of the film - that a boy from the Mumbai slums manages to win the Indian TV version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire - "beggars belief", reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

"This is a patently ridiculous conceit, the kind of fantasy writing that gives fantasy writing a bad name," the author of The Satanic Verses said in the article.

Going by Rushdie's comments, the film's central weakness was that it was adapted from a book by Indian diplomat-novelist Vikas Swarup called Q&A, which is itself "a corny potboiler with a plot that defies belief".

"It is a plot device faithfully preserved by the filmmakers, and lies at the heart of the weirdly renamed Slumdog Millionaire. As a result the film, too, beggars belief," wrote Mumbai-born Rushdie.

Rushdie signed off by saying: "We can only hope that the worst is over, and that better movies, better musicals and better times lie ahead."

Last month, the author marked the 20th anniversary of the Islamic death sentence imposed on him by Iran following the publication of The Satanic Verses. (ANI)