Bride and Prejudice (2005)
"My life and work has always been
about celebrating the diaspora, about seamlessly moving
from England to India to the states. If so many people
like me move happily across every corner of the world,
then why couldn't my characters and my film language
do the same?" - Gurinder Chadha in FLM Magazine
Imagine a Bollywood romantic comedy
film with all the standard trappings: Bright colors,
big musical numbers, a matchmaking mother, a easy-going
father, and subtitles. Now imagine the same film with
all the dialogue and singing in English. Sound good?
In fact this very simple device strips every ounce
of magic and wonder away from the film. This is exactly
what filmmaker Gurinder Chadha has done with "Bride
and Prejudice."
To be sure, much of the problem
with the film is the familiar story, one which in
many ways seems to rehash the plot from Chadha's own
outstanding debut, "Bend It Like Beckham." In fact
this story is, of course, actually taken from an even
older source, Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice."
It is filled with the same typical story structure
that we've seen in a thousand films of late, the old
"overbearing traditional mother trying to get her
grown children married off." This trite plot has become
so standard that it has even been co-opted by several
recent gay "American/Indian" films, in particular
"A Touch of
Pink."
Aishwarya Rai, called the "most
beautiful woman in the world" by Julia Roberts, in
actuality seems more like the Hindi Debra Messing.
While she's indeed wonderful to look at and a great
actress to boot, she's stuck in a thankless role where
we expect her to play the "fiery," contradictory outspoken
young woman not willing to settle for anything less
than genuine love. When she meets Martin Henderson
("The Ring") in the thankless and bland role of Darcy,
we know immediately that they will end up together,
not because they have any chemistry or spark between
them but because they immediately rub each other the
wrong way. It's so ho-hum.
But forget the plot, we don't really
need a plot to enjoy a Bollywood film. What we want
are great songs and dance numbers. The first one in
the film is actually pretty decent, whetting our appetites
for more. Then Chadha makes her biggest miscalculation
in the film; she begins to have the music numbers
sung in English. This automatically strips all the
magic and mystery from the songs in the piece. It
might work if Chadha had the film shift gears and
turn the film from a Bollywood musical into an English
musical when the film moves from India to England
and America. But the music stays in the style of the
traditional Bollywood fare, except the lyrics are
sung in English (at one point they are even sung in
English but using the traditional sort of nasal vocal
fluttering of the traditional songs). It's a big mish-mashed
mess and it simply doesn't work. If this film tried
to emulate modern Hollywood musicals, like "Saturday
Night Fever," "Chicago," or even a bunch of music
videos, it just might be interesting. Instead we get
some sort of lousy performance by Ashanti (for God's
sake why?) and a bunch of lousy songs sung in English
using the traditional Bollywood type music. It's not
just boring, it's bad.
"Bride and Prejudice" is a crashing
bore of a film, a long- winded suitor with bad breath
and dandruff. There's nothing new or original or even
likeable here. There's not a male suitor as hot as
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. There's not a original female
protagonist like Parminder Nagra in "Bend It Like
Beckham." There's just a bunch of junk that we've
seen in a million movies a million times before and
some Indian songs sung in English so we can understand
how lame and uninteresting the lyrics really are.
It may have been an interesting move on paper for
Chadha to deconstruct the Bollywood film but in doing
so she has completely rendered the genre dull and
void.
Notes:
Also with Marsha Mason and Alexis
Bledel.
Apparently Johnny Depp and Jaoquin
Phoenix were at one time considered for the role that
went to Henderson.
Filmed in India, London and the
U.S.
Viewed at the Arbor theater in March
of 2005. Yet again the staff at this theater interrupted
the film three times during the middle of the screening
by walking around the theater and in front of the
screen wildly waving a flashlight about. This is so
out of control at the Arbor that I am about ready
to find a city that has an arthouse that isn't owned
by Regal Cinemas and relocate. It seems to be their
policy now to interrupt their movies and infuriate
their patrons by walking through the screening of
movies at least three times and waving a flashlight
around. This is supposedly done for my safety and
convenience. What a fucking crock. This has fucking
ruined seeing art movies in Austin. So many art films
that play here play exclusively at the Arbor that
there is no choice but to see them there. What a frustrating
and infuriating situation. I have written a nasty
letter to the Arbor only to be told that they would
fix the problem - that they would tell the employees
to be discreet. Well they fucking haven't and it is
pissing me off. If you live in a city where you have
a choice of what theaters to go to, please consider
telling Regal that you will go to another theater
unless they change this ludicrous policy. And if you
would, please go to their website and write them an
e-mail and tell them how much you hate this policy.
