May 2022 Group Watch: Bride & Prejudice

[Zuzana]

In May we're going to watch:

Bride and Prejudice

A 2004 Bollywood-style movie adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel, Pride and Prejudice, that features the lives of four unmarried daughters in an Indian family. It was filmed primarily in English, with some Hindi and Punjabi dialogue.

Directed by Gurinder Chadha
Screenplay by Chadha and Paul Mayeda Berges
Cast: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (Lalita), Martin Henderson (Darcy)

Movie Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53W6y...



🎬 Bride and Prejudice (2004 Movie) - Challenge Category: Adaptations

[Zuzana]

Hailey, "zero chemistry" between the leads sounds bad. So far, I have only watched YouTube clips and trailers. All I can say at this point is that the actors are pretty. :D

About 8 years ago or so I watched Tamil version of Sense and Sensibility - Kandukondain Kandukondain (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, the actress from Bride and Prejudice, played Marianne) - and I quite liked it. It wasn't my favorite S&S adaptation but it was enjoyable.

[Melindam]

It's not a very good film per se, but I loved all the colours, the songs & dance parts.

[Zuzana]

Oops, I forgot to update this thread.

I did watch this movie last October while on vacation. I took a bunch of DVDs and utilized a small private screening room in the resort. It was great. A small-ish movie screen and 4 rows of old-fashioned movie theatre seats. The resort was near empty at that time of year. Moreover, I suspect that not many people knew the movie theatre was there. So it was mostly me with my friend or me on my own in the theatre.

I watched:
Bride and Prejudice (2004),
Emma. (2020),
Jane Eyre (2011),
Great Expectations (1974),
& Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016).

[Zuzana]

Back to Bride and Prejudice.

Transplanting P&P plot into modern day India worked really well. Class disparity, disparity of rights of men and women, societal pressure to marry, arranged marriages, focus on "chastity", strong family values and great emphasis on children's obedience even in matters of love - all this is still relevant in a way that called for minimal changes to the original plot of P&P. Similar to Unmarriageable (set in Pakistan). The plot remained mostly intact which is a plus for me.

Now for the negatives. The movie felt a bit disjointed to me. There were plotlines and some performances that were pure farce (Mr Collins, Mary's cobra dance or the final London chase). But surprisingly, some of the actors seemed like they had walked onto the set from a different much more serious movie (e.g. Wickham). These differences are partialy present in the book but they are toned down. You still believe that Collins, Mrs Bennet, Lady de Burgh and Darcy are part of the same universe. Here the changes in tone were giving me whiplash.

My major complaint is that the main couple lacks chemistry. Especially Martin Henderson is too bland as Darcy. There's no underlying tension (sexual attraction) in his scenes with Aishwarya Rai. The actress is extremely pretty and I believe her when she acts annoyed at Darcy's behavior, unfortunately I don't believe her when she tries to convey her falling in love with him.

Disclosure: I am not familiar with Bollywood cinema. It was quite obvious that there were references to other movies of the genre that meant nothing to me (my fault not the movie's). Also some of the scenes were a typical Bollywood fare expected (even by uninitiated people like me) in this type of film - dancing/singing scenes full of extras in colourful outfits. Sometimes they felt slightly out of place but mostly I accepted them to be essential parts of the genre.

3 stars from me. A nice movie. *shrugs*