PG-13 | Rottentomatoes.com Rating: 66% | 2005 |
(Mild profanity, skimpy clothing/ sensuality, mild crude comments) | Picky Flicks Quote: "Bride and Prejudice...works brilliantly on screen." -James Berardinelli, Reelviews | RUNTIME: 1 hr. 51 min. |
Visit:www.screenit.com for complete details | Movie Mood:  Entertained |
Can you imagine anyone making a Bollywood (Indian musical theater and dance) version of Jane Austen’s wry, observant classic, Pride and Prejudice, and calling it, of all things, Bride and Prejudice? Well, I hope you can because Gurinder Chadha of Bend It Like Beckham fame not only imagined but directed such a movie. The most surprising part? It actually works, and it’s a lot of (admittedly silly) fun!
The movie takes the basic premise of Austen’s book and places the action squarely in the middle of a “typical” (as in stereotypical) modern Indian household. The father is soft-spoken, sensible, and devoted to his four daughters. The mother is shrill and desperate to see all four of her lovelies married off as soon as possible. This woman would not be at all opposed to a quadruple wedding.
Her second oldest, the fiery, quick-tongued Lalita (in the Elizabeth Bennet role), has other ideas, though. She’s interested in marrying only for love—not in being auctioned off to the highest bidder. She’s especially horrified when a distant relative who has moved to AHMreecah (that would be America) comes back to India to choose his bride and becomes smitten with her. It’s no wonder he would—Lalita is played by Aishwarya Rai, a world-renowned Indian superstar and former Miss World whom some have proclaimed to be the most beautiful woman in the world (try proving that)..
The most likely candidate for wedded bliss seems to be Lalita’s sweet older sister, Jaya (doubling for Jane Bennet), although the prematurely eager youngest daughter is doing the best she can to hoochie-dress her way into at least a boyfriend before any of her older sisters get a chance. When Jaya hits it off with the well-mannered, handsome Balraj, who is visiting from England, Lalita is thrown into the path of his best friend, Will Darcy (for those of you who don’t know, the iconic Darcy from Austen’s Pride and Prejudice did have a first name after all, and it was Fitzwilliam; I know; thank goodness they called him Darcy!).
It’s disgust at first sight for both Darcy and Lalita. He’s not impressed with how opinionated she is considering she hails from “Hicksville, India,” and she convinced he’s nothing more than an American imperialistic pig who wants to plunk a luxury chain hotel smack dab on top of everybody’s culture and heritage. Of course, they’re both a little right about each other but also, if you know anything about the novel on which the movie is based, meant for each other. Unfortunately for this movie, Martin Henderson’s Darcy is about as interesting as a great big wheelbarrow full of mud, and Lalita’s sparkle and wit show him up time and again. There’s very little real chemistry between the two leads, but the supporting characters more than make up for it.
Even if they didn't, the movie’s bad song and dance sequences, which range from mildly bad to almost unbearable while still managing to be catchy, would do the trick To give you an idea of what to expect, one of the songs that will hound you for days afterwards features all four of the sisters clad in white pajamas singing the tongue-in-cheek lyrics: “No life without wife!!" The lip synching is pretty terrible and the colors over-the-top. In fact, everything about the singing and dancing is uniformly cheesy and should be impossible to watch. But instead it’s exhilarating. The bright colors and the sheer abandon with which the actors perform is infectious. As I said before, it’s a lot of fun.
Ultimately, the film strays very little from the trajectory of the major plot points of Pride and Prejudice, so rather than continue to summarize the plot, I will simply recommend that you go read the source material…again if it’s been a while or for the (gasp!) first time if you’ve somehow never stumbled across this wonderful book.
Suffice it to say that Bride and Prejudice wisely chooses not to take itself too seriously. The rather dry patches of “serious” romance are wonderfully counterbalanced by the vivacious, self-referential musical numbers and humor. The cast is attractive and natural (with the notable exception of Henderson for whom the phrase “stiff as a board” was certainly fashioned), the storyline engaging (thanks to Miss Austen), and the ending happy. What more could you ask for in a Bollywood version of a much-beloved satirical British romance?
That’s right. Nothing.
Until next Wednesday, stay picky! Your mind will thank you later.
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