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 urinder Chadha's "Bride and Prejudice",
supposedly a modern retelling (Bollywood style) of Jane Austen's "Pride
and Prejudice", allows me to break out my favorite line when reviewing
movies such as these: It is what it is, and if you went into this film
knowing what it is, and yet expecting more than what it is capable of, then
it's entirely your fault for being disappointed. As with her earlier
international success, the Keira Knightley soccer flick "Bend
It Like Beckham", Chadha attempts once again to bring Bollywood to
Hollywood. To this end, Chadha has teamed up India's most well known female
personality (and one-time Miss World) Aishwarya Rai, with New Zealander
Martin Henderson ("Torque"),
here playing a dashing American.
"Bride and Prejudice"
breaks down and proceeds in the predictable pattern one is used to with
romantic comedies, rather they be from Hollywood, India, or the UK. Boy
meets girl; boy and girl falls for one another; obstacle enters; they rise
above it and live happily ever after. It's formulaic to the core, and
really, that's what anyone who enters the theater expects out of "Bride
and Prejudice". The trick, then, is to offer up convincing enough
performances from the two primary leads, enough yuks supplied by the wacky
supporting cast, and some random bits of entertainment in-between the
predictable "meet cute" moment and the equally predictable
"happily ever after" moment.
In those respects, "Bride and Prejudice"
certainly comes through, complete with impromptu singing and dancing,
except here the songs are (for the most part) in English. Henderson plays
Will Darcy, an American businessman visiting India with fellow rich buddy
Balraj (Naveen Andrews). Balraj has eyes for the eldest daughter in the
Bakshi clan, Jaya (Namrata Shirodkar), and Darcy came along to buy a
beachfront hotel. At a wedding, Darcy meets the lovely Lalita (Rai),
Jaya's younger sister. It's love at first sight, but Lalita is quickly
turned off by Darcy's brash Americanism, and so it's up to Darcy to chase
Lalita for the remainder of the movie. Somewhere in the middle, an English
bloke from Darcy's past shows up to get in the way of Lalita and Darcy
making a love connection. Don't you just hate it when that happens?
At an hour and 40 minutes, "Bride and
Prejudice" is probably about 15 minutes too long. The length,
incidentally, is one of the problems I had with Chadha's
"Beckham". The two films simply go on longer than necessary,
with a lot of superfluous asides that take up space, making a more
desirous snappy pace impossible. For instance, although Nitin Chandra
Ganatra, as the goofball Kholi (an Americanized Indian who returns home to
find a bride), is almost always funny when onscreen, the film nevertheless
spends too much time on his hijinks. In fact, when Henderson finally makes
a re-appearance after a long absence, it takes you a moment to realize
he's actually the male lead, and not Ganatra.
There are some mild laughs and chuckles to be had
with "Bride and Prejudice", but nothing to roll in the aisles
laughing over. Also, the singing and dancing doesn't quite seem up to
snuff; that is, they don't seem quite as good as in other Bollywood
movies. Then again, it's not like I've seen enough of these movies to
really make an expert judgment, so take that criticism for what it's
worth. On the whole, the film does work, if only because I never expected
very much out of it except some fluff entertaining. There's also a
"snake dance" somewhere in the middle that probably makes up the
movie's funniest moment.
The film falters in some places, including those much
too long asides with Kholi, as well as the many background moments
concerning Wickham (Daniel Gillies), the troublesome English bloke in
question. Actually, I'm not entirely sure why Wickham is such a bad guy,
even after the -- gasp! -- big secret about his past is revealed. You'd
think the villain of the piece would prove to be more villainous. Wickham
is actually a pretty swell fellow for about 99% of the time he's onscreen.
In fact, the guy comes across as downright nice, if a bit shady.
As the leads, Rai and Henderson are certainly prime
examples of two people possessing impossibly perfect "movie
star" good looks. There's little doubt why Rai is the superstar that
she is; the woman is simply gorgeous, with eyes that could start wars. In
fact, most of the female Indian cast is stunning to look at, and everyone
who isn't is obviously there for comic relief. The mother and father are
clichés, and you'll no doubt find variations of them in every Bollywood
romantic comedy you come across. Actually, most of "Bride and
Prejudice" is clichéd, but I suppose that's the charm of these
films.
Is "Bride and Prejudice" the engine that
will convince Middle America to give Bollywood a chance? Probably not. As
strange as it may sound, I'm not entirely sure if "Prejudice" is
Indian enough to actually be seen as anything overtly
"ethnic". If that turns out to be the case, it would be quite
ironic, as no doubt the filmmakers went to great pains to make the movie
more accessible to Western audiences. In this case, they may have
succeeded too much.
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