Bride and Prejudice. Miramax Films release. Written and directed by Gurinder Chadha; starring Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson, released on DVD July 10th, 2005.
As a huge Jane Austen fan, I remember quite vividly when the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice came out. It was a masterpiece, not only because it remained absolutely true to the book, but because my beloved Colin Firth starred in it. Even with its five-hour length, it still remains one of those movies that I watch on rainy days, sad days, or just because it’s been a while. Nine years later, a new, updated version has been released, called Bride and Prejudice.
In this modern day spin on the classic story, the setting has moved to a small town in India. A rich American, William Darcy, played by Martin Henderson, comes to the village to attend a wedding, where he meets the gorgeous, headstrong Lalitha, played by Indian superstar Aishwarya Rai. After an initial attraction between the two, a sequence of misunderstandings and stubbornness puts them at odds with each other, and begins a love/hate relationship that, finally, tips all the way over to love.
Director Gurinder Chadha, best known for Bend It like Beckham and What’s Cooking? puts a unique twist on this well-known plot. She successfully places the story in India and changes the traditionally British couple to an American and Indian. The result is a present-day conflict of ethnicities, something that Chadha loves to put in most of her films. Chadha, a Kenyan woman raised in London and now married to a Japanese-American, seems to love to play with the relationships and interactions of those from different ethnic backgrounds. In Bend It like Beckham, there was a Kenyan girl, her family and a young British man; in Bride and Prejudice the focus is on an Indian woman, her family, and a young American man. Maybe the key to writing successful screenplays about different ethnicities is to be living it.
This, along with the quirky characters, only adds to the fun of the movie.
By making Bride and Prejudice into a musical, Chadha has combined Bollywood with Hollywood, giving the costumes and backgrounds such an intense array of bright colors that it becomes mesmerizing to see what visual will be next. This is very clever, and makes the film much more upbeat and energetic than Jane Austen ever intended it to be. This is also the aspect that will probably upset Austen purists, much the same way Shakespeare fans hated Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet. I loved it. When Lalitha and her sisters break into song in their pajamas, mocking their distant cousin, it added an innocence and hilarity that makes it stand out from other musicals.
The only thing this film is missing is character dimension and depth, which strangely, doesn’t feel like its missing at all. This is not a character study, it is a ride to be enjoyed. The purpose of Bride and Prejudice is not to contemplate or ponder, but to laugh and enjoy what is happening on screen. Many of the characters come across as “stereotypical”, like the typical rich, American snob; the typical poor Indian mother. While these stereotypes may be bad in other movies where the characters come first, this is not so with Bride and Prejudice. This is a film where the characters are secondary to the story, colors, and music. A wonderful film, Bride and Prejudice is not only an update of a classic, but a truly original script. Chadha knows exactly how to make an audience smile, as she has proven over and over again..
