Like all great novels, Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" speaks to
different cultures; and like all good movies, "Bride and Prejudice"
manages to stitch these cultures together in a colorful mosaic.
"Bride and Prejudice" is the director Gurinder Chadha's ("Bend It
Like Beckham") modern, cross-cultural and musical interpretation of
the ambitious Mrs. Bennet's search for appropriate grooms for her
daughters and of Elizabeth Bennet's and Will Darcy's misunderstanding
and later enlightenment of each other.
Only in this movie, the Bennets are the Bakshis living in Amritsar
in Northern India. Will Darcy, played by Martin Henderson ("The
Ring"), is an American hotel magnate and Naveen Andrews ("The English
Patient") plays Mr. Bingley, or Balraj. In this case, however, Mr.
Bingley is British of Indian descent. India's dazzling beauty queen
Aishwarya Rai, at the brink of a Hollywood career, plays the
intelligent and headstrong Elizabeth Bennet, who is renamed as Lalita
Bakshi in the movie.
The movie begins with Rai's character sitting on a tractor
inspecting her father's farms. The mother (Nadira Babbar) realizes
the rich and eligible Balraj is coming to attend a friend's wedding
and tries to nab him for her eldest daughter Jaya (played by Namrata
Shirodkar, another beauty queen). In the meantime, her sister Lalita
takes a dislike for Darcy, whom she perceives to be arrogant. The
tale develops as more characters are introduced, and the pride and
prejudice of Darcy and Lalita give way to love and respect.
The extravagance of the canvas and colors open up a sensuous,
dreamlike world for the eyes. The movie is shot beautifully in three
continents -- Asia, Europe and North America by Indian director and
cameraman Santosh Shivan.
The balls of 19th century England are replaced by the wedding
dances of modern India, and the characters break into colorful,
artfully choreographed song-and-dance sequences at regularly timed
intervals. The movie manages to be entertaining and believable --
successfully translating the feminist themes of Austen's novels into
diverse, modern-day concerns such as perceived American haughtiness,
arranged marriage and feminism in a developed country.
The only major flaw in the movie is that some songs had outlandish
lyrics that were not enunciated clearly.
Henderson seemed to be in a daze throughout the movie, but the
rest of the cast including Rai, Shirodkar, Babbar gave convincing
performances, making the most outlandish scenes hilarious. Daniel
