The Editrix reviews BRIDE AND PREJUDICE
We have been anticipating this movie impatiently for months, and are pleased to report that we were not at all disappointed. BRIDE AND PREJUDICE is a frothy, funny, delightful confection; Bollywood enough to be interesting and Hollywood enough to be familiar.
Aishwarya Rai’s Lalita is an intelligent and independent-thinking woman who can still sing wistfully that she is waiting for love to find her. She cherishes her prejudices about Darcy and is loath to let them go; he has to win her over, and win her away from the charming Wickham and his own mistakes. It’s no secret that Ash is a beautiful woman, and she is obviously a star, but she doesn’t depend on her looks to carry her in this film. She has real talent, and there is strong chemistry between Ash and her Darcy.
Martin Henderson is a terrific Darcy: tall and handsome, unthinkingly snobbish in the beginning and revealing himself as a warm and caring brother and romantic partner as the film progresses. If he was a little stiff, we think it was because he was fighting the accent a bit (he is actually a New Zealander), but he was quite believable as an American. Besides, Darcy is supposed to be stiff! And no other Darcy ever had as good an excuse to beg off dancing with his Elizabeth! 
Henderson gives in to Chadha’s gleeful humiliation of Darcy, and humanizes the character thoroughly in the process. We found him perfectly delightful.
The minor characters are great: Mr. and Mrs. Bakshi are thoroughly recognizable avatars for Mr. and Mrs. Bennet: we clapped, more than once, when Mr. Bakshi dryly delivered one of those Mr. Bennet lines. Johnny Wickham is sexy and slimy, Lakhi (Lydia) is thoughtlessly trampy, Maya’s snake dance is as hilarious as Mary Bennet’s bad singing, Kiran is as perfectly snooty as Caroline Bingley, and Marsha Mason’s Catherine Darcy (Will’s mother, not his aunt) is withering both to the Bakshis and her own son. No Georgian-set film ever had so many gorgeous costumes or stunningly beautiful women, and there is no lack of handsome men, either. We have had a crush on Naveen Andrews since THE ENGLISH PATIENT, and his “Indian M.C. Hammer” bit only served to increase his many charms. Nitin Chandra Ganatra is a standout as Mr. Kholi, the expat who blows into Amritsar bada-bing-bada-boom, looking for an old-fashioned Indian girl for his wife and providing quite as much comic relief as the rector of Hunsford.
The Janeites who attended the film with us mostly loved it as well, though one purist in our group didn’t think much of it. The rest of us were dancing in the theatre lobby and singing “No Life Without Wife” all the way home. Gurinder Chadha’s experimental combination of Bollywood and Hollywood works, and we think Jane Austen would have approved of this reimagining of her classic story. Trust us: the rhythm IS going to get you!
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Yay – I really hoped you’d like it and I’m so pleased you did!
I’m going on Sunday, and am so happy to read your glowing review.
Kirsty, I think I’m gonna be a multiple viewer, like you.
A friend was supposed to come with me last night, but couldn’t attend at the last minute, and asked if we could go later. I will accompany her happily–and pay for my ticket this time!
I have the soundtrack with me at work today…no life, without wife…
Google results suggest that everyone is downloading _No Life Without Wife_ as a cellphone ringtone….
Oh, cool. It’s a very catchy song.
I’m listening to the soundtrack right now (schwag!) and that song and “Take Me To Love” are very singalongable. (Not sure that’s a word, but you know what I mean.) The Ashanti songs are good, too.
There’s one song I don’t remember from the movie, “Pride, Arrogance and Vanity” (“Roll them all up and you have Dar-ceee!”) It’s a duet between Lalita and Darcy. I read that a song was cut, maybe that was it. I hope they put it back in for the DVD. Or maybe I just have a bad memory.
Excellent! I’m glad you liked it. I’m still trying to work out a time when I can go see it….
I just realized something: the DVD comes out in the U.K. next month, and I have an all-region DVD player now… *cackles evilly*
The papers here in NYC absolutely panned it. The reviews are so bad that I am forced to attend by myself because the person I was going to go with now doesn’t want to.
OMG, just read the review in the NYT. It is so bad, I’d have to say the reviewer has some hidden agenda. I’m guessing she dismisses any attempt at crossover as degrading the original genre (in this case the Indian cinema.)
If I was feeling uncharitable, I’d say it just confirms how provincial and out of touch the New York press is. Or that they employ too many anglophobe bigots.
Specifically, she pans the music and choreography. …”clumsy song-and-dance numbers” etc. I think this review (Manohla Dargis in the NYT, Feb 11) tells me more about the reviewer than the film.
I was discussing the movie with a co-worker yesterday, and she said she was interested in seeing it because she likes Martin Henderson and Naveen Andrews and her curiosity was piqued by seeing Aishwarya Rai on GMA. She told me she wasn’t that familiar with P&P, and I realized that she might not like it as much as I did. I think a lot of my pleasure in it was the ways that it tied into P&P. Someone who wasn’t interested in that angle might not like it as much. But I thought the musical numbers were fun. “Dola Dola” (the one with the sticks) was a fantastic piece of choreography.
I just saw it. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Here’s what I wrote to the friend who “jilted” me:
I went. And I liked it.
Yes, the song-and-dance numbers were monumentally silly, but those are a staple of Bollywood films, so I accepted them for what they were. No biggie. One song in particular was, however, an absolute hoot. The 4 sisters (there’s no Kitty equivalent) have just met Mr. Kholi (Mr. Collins) and they are, as expected, not impressed. So they sing about it. In their pajamas. The song, called “No Life Without Wife,” was hilarious.
Unlike MP2, the plot followed P&P almost perfectly (you could tell the writer/director loves the book), even to the extent of having the Mary character do something completely humiliating. And, of course, her father then embarrasses her further by telling her she’s entertained them enough. Mr. and Mrs. Bakshi (Bennet) were very good, as are the 4 girls. The Charlotte character is much prettier than any Charlotte should be, but what the hell. There were a lot of modernizations of actual P&P dialogue that really worked. Including a reworking of the opening line, which I thought was a nice touch.
The Caroline Bingley character was interesting. She could be bitchy, but she could also be sincerely nice. She even looked like P&P2′s Miss Bingley.
And the Lydia character (Lakhi) was an absolute slut. She bore, I think, an uncanny resemblance to a young Linda Blair.
Yes, it was silly. Yes, it was over the top. But I liked it anyway.
PS…
I walked up Park Avenue on the way home because the orange curtains are ruining my lovely Central Park and it was too nice a day to deal with commercial streets filled with tourists who don’t know where they are or where they’re headed.
Anyway, the fact that I was headed up Park is significant — I happened to catch a glance of a plaque giving the name of the doctor whose office I was passing.
The doctor’s name was “Bakshi.” I got a good chuckle from that!
I’m glad you liked it, Julie!
She even looked like P&P2′s Miss Bingley.
YES! They found the Indian Anna Chancellor! I loved her Burberry plaid bikini and matching visor!
I loved your review!!!
I hope this film gets a wider distribution so that more people can see it. After reading the Bollywood article in the most recent National Geographic, I’m very intrigued to see this production, and from what I’ve seen of the production stills, the stars are absolutely gorgeous.
Wish you could have come with us on Thursday.
My understanding is that it will go into wide release on February 25. There was an article that said it did okay in limited release. It’s only on 32 screens nationwide.
“Martin Henderson is a terrific Darcy: tall and handsome, unthinkingly snobbish in the beginning and revealing himself as a warm and caring brother and romantic partner as the film progresses.”
This sounds promising, I must say…..:thud:, but then, what is P&P (Bollywood, or no) without a lovely and thuddable Darcy? After all, it IS the most romantic novel of all time!
Darcy is very handsome and rather more outgoing than we are accustomed to, but honey, wait till you see Mr. Bingley standing on a balcony with his shirt hanging wiiiiide open. Mmmm mmmm mmmmm! I was looking around for bricks with which to smash my head, but alas, none were handy.