Bride and Prejudice
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Movie Reviews of Bride and Prejudice
Movie Review: Move over Hollywood! The Beauty and Art of India is coming
Summary: 5 Stars
See! I told you so! If you read my reviews on "Lagaan" and my other Bollywood movie reviews, I told you a few years ago that Bollywood will start coming to America. It is great family entertainment! There are alot more beautiful actresses than just Aishwarya Rai coming from India. In fact, although she is very beautiful, she's not even in MY top 10 favorite Bollywood actresses. I have so many favorites. Indian actresses are all drop dead gorgeous. A few of my personal favorites are:
Rani Mukherjee
Sonali Bendre
Urmila Matondkar
Amisha Patel
Kajol
Priyanka Chopra
Tanisha Mukherjee (Kajol's sister)
Madhuri Dixit
Shilpa Shetty
Kareena and Karisma Kapoor (sisters)
Aarti Chabria
....yeah and then maybe
Aishwarya Rai ..and then
Sushmita Sen
Preity Zinta
Mahek Chahal
Suman Ranganathan
Namrata Shiradkar (plays Jaya in this film)
Tabu
Manisha Koirala
Tara Sharma
Neha Dhupia
Lara Dutta
Mahima Chaudhary
Mink Singh
Preity Jhangiani
Shamita Shetty
Deepal Shaw
.....etc. etc. etc.
....I could probably name about 10 more actresses that I love, plus there are usually other beautiful girls who just happen to be in the films as extras to fill a scene, but, you get the picture. I love Bollywood actresses and I am hooked on Bollywood films. And Indira Varma and Naveen Andrews are both here in this film. They were together nearly 10 years ago in Mira Nair's "Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love". I believe Indira Varma look's better with long hair. I guess in "Bride and Prejudice" they probably prefered to have the audience focus on the beauty of Aishwarya Rai and the other three who were her sisters in the film.
If you'd like to see pictures of these beautiful actresses, go to IndiaFM.com and click on wallpapers (no nudes, just beautiful people.)
Girls that I know who follow Bollywood films love these actors: Hrithik Roshan, Shahrukh Khan, Bobby Deol, Salman Khan, Aftaab Shivdasani, Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham, Uday Chopra, Fardeen Khan, Arjun Rampal, Vivek Oberoi, Aamir Khan, and Ajay Devgan (Kajol's husband)...just to name a few.
Also, go to IMDb.com (Internet Movie Data Base) to enter these stars names, and find out what movies they have done. Even Aishwarya Rai has probably more than 30 films. If you don't mind reading subtitles, then Bollywood films will be your next movie obsession, just like me. It may take a little patience to understand and accept Hindi music, but the sexy videos that you will be watching will keep that music in your head. Having a musical film is no more different than any Walt Disney film.
I appreciate that Ashanti got to participte in a simular Bollywood video, in the film. I hope MTV plays it and helps to introduce Indian music and the exciting, beautiful, dance videos to the american audience.
I think Hollywood is afraid of Bollywood. If Indian films started to come to america,at a massive volume, the "plain jane" look of american actresses would suddenly be threatened by the grace and beauty of the Bollywood actress.
Movie Review: Extraordinary fusion of the two worlds
Summary: 5 Stars
Bride and Prejudice is the Indian version of Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice with an Anglo-Saxon touch. The idea seems weird and awkward, but Gurinder Chadha managed to put the two different worlds of movie making together very well and neat. This director of the "Bend it Like Beckham" had shown us that different movie worlds could be connected, as long as you can get the formula right.
The story of Bride and Prejudice is about a mother who has four daughters living in India, trying to "export" her eldest 2 daughters to the rich and wealthy Indians overseas. The story hovers around Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson who linked their fate together by a series of unfortunate incidents. Both actors were presented gorgeously, just like characters in typical Jane Austin's world but with a bit of modern and ethnic flavour. The story was well presented and there are a lot of gags trying to tailor to both the Indian and Western worlds. Chadha tried to introduce the world of out-of-nowhere-sudden singing and dancing sequences that exist in most Bollywood movies to the western audience with a huge western touch. Two of most important moderations are the use of English lyrics in Indian music and the R'n B tone Indian music in one of the songs. Some might feel very strange when you just read the words here, but it in fact works really well. What you would feel is a musical but just in Indian tunes (imagine the Sad Hindi Diamond track in Moulin Rouge but more Indian and better). Of course the director played hard on the awkward nature of sudden singing and dancing, but to appreciate the gag on this, you might need to watch one or two Bollywood movies before this.
The whole cast gave a brilliant performance on various characters and some of the more noticeable ones are the mother and her rich Indian relative from LA. They in fact released most of the laughing gas in the movie and whenever they turn up on the screen, you would expect something interesting coming out from them. Rai and Henderson's performance are fair but Rai did provide most of the glamour in the movie, and as she paired together with Henderson, you just feel that they should be together.
The movie spans 3 continents including India, Europe and America. In the movie you would be able to see some of the most iconic places in these countries such as the Golden Temple in India, the Millennium Eye in UK and the Grand Canyon in the States. Nonetheless, there are certain lines among the dialogues that could make you think about how the Director or Screen player's views about the differences and uncompromising aspects of these cultures. The conversations on the views about arranged marriage, about foreign investment in India, and the hypocrisy of pretentious open-mindedness are all very culturally challenging and enlightening.
In all, Bride and Prejudice is a very entertaining movie. If you think you would get put off by Indian music or a western movie in Bollywood style, this will seriously surprise you. However, if you just want to watch a standard western musical or you don't care about any movies that are not compromising to the stereotypical western movie formula, better give it a pass. Otherwise just jump in and dance along with the tunes!
Movie Review: Stunning and hilarious adaptation - full blown Indian interpretation
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this! To me it is like Emma and Clueless were to LA - this is Pride and Prejudice to India. the essence of Austen taken on by a different culture. It is immensely colourful and rather than stick completely to the plot has allowed the vibrant colour and issues of a modern day india translate their own issues within the framework of Austen.
It is enormously good natured and richly colourful. This is not just the characters but also the costumes - and whoever did the cinematography WOW!
Lalita, the second daughter of the Bakshirs takes on the role of 'Elizabeth' in the traditional Pride and Prejudice. She meets William Darcy who has come with his friend Bill (Mr Bingley) to an Indian Wedding. There are four sisters in Lalita's family - which is enough - the "Jane" for Bingley to fall for, the 'Mary" to humiliate the family in this case with a very strange cobra dance - and a 'Kitty' to run away with Wickham.
the main plot devices are there - Mr Kohli (Mr Collins) comes back from LA to make a match with one of the Bakshir daughters - and he is every bit the part! The conflict of Mr Darcy with the bumbling stupidity of Mr Kohli and the duplicitous unctiousness of Mr Wickham are there.
Some have minor changes, "lady Catherine" is now Catherine, Darcy's mother. Catherine brings Darcy's girlfriend 'Anne' along to the Indian Wedding in the garden in LA mucking up the budding romance between Lalita and Darcy - which is a nice nod to the 'pretty kind of a wilderness' used in the original Pride and Prejudice.
I loved the mixture of Bollywood and its musicals with Austen humour and style - I just about wet my pants in the first few minutes when a hugely noisy singing dancing scene turned up. All the elegance of the nineteenth century is lost in a see of enthusiastic waving, singing and dancing, and it is all done (i am sure with self-deprecating humour! It is not just for those in the know - this is very much laughing at the whole essence of Austen and her interpretations, you can't think of anything more removed from a drawning room of elegant aristocracy than maybe an Indian Wedding.
But there is also other knowing laughs - I really enjoyed the segue to an American Gospel choir on the beach at LA, accompanied by a couple of dancing Baywatchers and a group of surfies complete with boards.
I felt the actors were very well suited to their parts - Lalita is definitely an intelligent and feisty interpretation of Elizabeth - my only minor problem with her is she is altogether too luminously beautiful that she completely outshines the 'Jane' character. Jane is supposed to be the beauty of the family and it is patently not true here. "Jane" is certainly beautiful too, and she brings out the sweetness and gentleness of character necessary in the part. I loved Martin Henderson as Darcy, his reserve slowly fading as he gets to know the family better. He is nice looking although I had trouble believing him as a millionaire hotellier - it wasn't out of the realms of possibility.
This is an enormously colourful and good natured interpretation - I loved it!
Movie Review: Good Shameless Fun....
Summary: 5 Stars
I just saw this in the theater and wanted to address some criticisms of this film:
a)"Bad/wooden acting:"I love old movies and musicals and some of this movie's bollywood elements harken back to these styles of movies. If you go in expecting equal parts "I love Lucy" and "Grease"-as oppossed to equal parts "Seinfeld" and "Chicago"(which both rely on a more sarcastic and ironic wit), you'll be in better shape. More traditional musicals simply have a different style of storytelling, which relies on more cornball, physical comedy and acting that is more pronounced. I mean, if the premise is that it's natural too break out into song because of the emotions welling up in you, then you should expect all the other elements of the movie(the dancing, the acting, the colors, the emotions) to be more pronounced as well. Traditional musicals, in essence, are life magnified and filtered with rose colored glasses. The figurative volume button is suppossed to be about 10 notches higher than reality.
b)"Chadha and B&P are self righteous and overly pc":Many critics thought that the movies' rhetoric was way too anti-Western/anglo/American. But Lalita/Lizzy is the "prejudice" in the title "Pride and Prejudice!" She decides she doesn't like DArcy, and then uses preconceived notions of what and who he is to justify her dislike of him! Thus all the imperialistic rhetoric. I think if you have read the novel, you pick up on the fact that Lalita is sometimes simply indulging her prejudice. The ONLY thing that I think would have helped the movie was to show more sensual tension underlying the verbal sparring between Lalita and Darcy. That way, it would be more obvious that the rhetoric is secondary, and that this verbal sparring is in reality a sort of seductive dance between these two people who experience chemistry and friction simultaneously! Martin Henderson(who I think was fine) deserved to have more snappy comebacks to Lalita's comments to better show how they are equals-that's my only complaint.
c)"There should be more substance:"There is this notion that somehow, because of its literary roots, it should have more substance. But Austen herself mentioned that she thought "P&P" was a little too light for her own standards(she said the book was in want of more "shade" exactly)! While quite insightful to human nature, this story is mainly a lovely romantic comedy. And Chadha takes full advantage of this material to make a shamelessly romantic and joyful movie.
I was in a pretty crowded theatre with alot of couples, and I'm telling you, everyone was just laughing and giggling the whole time. After it was over, everyone stayed in the seats to even watch the little bloopers sequences even. This is a movie to seen on the big screen, with it's dance numbers and vibrant colors. I think most people can enjoy this movie if they go in with the understanding that this is a movie made in the grand old tradition of comedies and musicals of yesteryear, where people so full of emotion break out into song-and 10 or even 100 dancers may come out of the woodwork to accompany the singer......
Movie Review: Wonderful fun, and the perfect role for Aishwarya
Summary: 5 Stars
The Jane Austen Society was happy with the movie, and so was I! If you have an open mind and aren't stuck on the BBC/A&E version, then you'll be in for a joyful ride.
I highly recommend watching the Special Features section as it's chock full of information, deleted scenes and extended songs. IMO you'll have a greater understanding of the finished product if you take the time to go through it all.
There are enough reviews that go over the basic story so I won't bother, but instead I'll mention certain things that grabbed my attention.
Aish may have gained 20 pounds for this role, but she's so well lit and made up that she's still the most gorgeous woman around. The mother makes a point of putting all of her eggs in the Jaya-is-the-beauty basket (as only the beauties will ever marry and save the family), but Lalita is outshining her with no effort. BTW, Aish isn't all beauty, and she proves that as she plays a wide variety of emotions and does it all with ease (along with the singing and dancing).
Lalita is definitely one of the tougher versions of "Elizabeth" that we've seen, and she's just as arrogant, rude and insensitive as she accuses Darcy of being. She also doesn't hesitate to show her contempt or general disinterest in Kohli or Darcy. Thankfully she has a soft side/big heart as well to counter the harshness, and she's open to changing her mind when the truth is laid out before her (like when Darcy apologizes in London).
While I wouldn't have cast Martin as Darcy, he does have his good points, and what he lacks doesn't hurt the film to any real degree.
I'm glad that the confrontation between Mrs. Darcy and Lalita was left out (Special Features, deleted scenes). IMO it didn't have enough dramatic punch, and that may have been the fault of the director or the acting choices of Aish and Marsha Mason. Who knows, but I don't think it would have added a great deal if left in the movie.
At the end, there's a point where Aish changes her facial expression, and it struck me as odd given that particular scene. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but I do think that Balraj and Jaya had that definite "get a room" look, and that went along with the lust/love at first sight that they experienced. IMO Lalita and Darcy were "interest" at first sight, and the rest came later. Who knows though.
I have to wonder what their lives would be like in a sequel as Lalita moves to L.A. and tries to find her place in another country with in laws that may not be welcoming even with a husband that supports her 100%. At least her best friend is there as well, but her sister and other friend are in London...what a story that could be.