how much do you think they made this movie for?

I do not know filmbuff87, but I suspect less than the cost of keeping some superstar like, say Jennifer Lopez entertained in their on-set-trailers for one day! Anyway, keeping things simple is what contributed to the power of this story - as it's very real. Today still, you have only once-a-week visits by doctors to rural areas, the only public phone in the village not working, etc etc.. so this movie needed to be stripped of all gloss to retain its integrity. Methinks a bigger budget would have ruined it.