Bride & Prejudice

When adapting a classic tale and moving it to a modern setting and era, either you have to stay respectful to your source, or you have to alter it so much, people will barely remember where it originated from. Lets take Clueless as an example. Possibly the best teen movie of all time, it is, like Bride & Prejudice, based on an old and very famous text – Emma, by Jane Austen. But unlike Bride & Prejudice, it puts a truly original and innovative spin on its source text. Her mother dies from liposuction complications? Genius!

Another example – Bridget Jones’ Diary. In this spin on the story, Helen Fielding took the ideas and main characters behind the novel Pride and Prejudice and twisted it about to her own satisfaction, while still sticking to the basis of the story – the love triangle between the woman and the two men.

Both are hilarious movies. Bride and Prejudice is not. Gurinder Chadha, previously of Bend It Like Beckham and Bhaji on the Beach, tries to combine a classic story with dance numbers and cheesy lines that are (deliberately) typical of Bollywood films, but sadly the two aspects of the film just don’t fit together, making for a un-enjoyable mess.


Aishwarya Rai is Lalita, an Indian girl whose sister has just gotten married, and is next on the list. Her mother is stereotypically obsessed with fixing her up with a rich Indian, and is outraged when she invites a Brit, Mr. Wickham, to stay at their house. Meanwhile, Lalita meets Will Darcy, a rich American businessman who falls for her instantly, only to have her explode on him over his disrespectful view of the Indian culture.

The movie blends romantic comedy with blatantly lip-synched song and dance numbers. Obviously, Chadha really wants you to really get into the feel of it, and have lots of fun, but its just not possible. The cast is uninteresting, especially Martin Henderson, who is little more than a pretty face, and Daniel Gillies (Mary-Jane’s rejected husband in Spider-Man 2) who is simply irritating. Only the spouse that Lalita’s mother approves of, a rich, nerdy Indian now living in Los Angeles, presents any laughs.

Chadha has admitted Bend It Like Beckham was a deliberate venture into mainstream territory, basically her attempt at making a universally popular film. Now that she’s back to what she was apparently ‘best at’, it seems she is hoping the success of Bend It will encourage viewers to go see a film just because her name is attached to it. Dirty trick really, since Bride & Prejudice is nowhere near as fun as Bend It, nor are there any ‘breakout stars’ on the level of Keira or Parminder hiding in its depths. Boring, throwaway trash
** / *****