katharriet Review of Bride & Prejudice

Bride & Prejudice (2004)

Good Bollywood, Good adaption, just plain good.

[7/10 · 12 February 2005]

It should first be noted that I'm an occasional fan of Bollywood (meaning I rent the movies occasionally and enjoy them every time I do) and a constant fan of Pride and Prejudice, so I'm familiar both with the genre and the source material, which is not always a good idea when trying to enjoy a movie like this. I laughed long and loud throughout the entire movie (except when I was quietly murmuring "awwww" or "noooo" at the appropriate moments) just like everyone else in the theater. In terms of form, I'd call it a "masala" movie: a mix of Bollywood and Hollywood styles, and whereas Gurinder Chadha's last movie, "Bend it Like Beckham" skewed Western, "B&P" skews Bollywood, with musical numbers and a script that fluctuates a little more quickly between drama and comedy. Nonetheless, it's very _easy_ Bollywood viewing for a Western audience, and the combination is very seldom unharmonious. The dialogue is all in English, and the few musical numbers that aren't are subtitled; there are also fewer musical numbers than there would be in a Bollywood flick, possibly because the film is Hollywood-length rather than Bollywood length, which would have been twice as long. The tone is more consistent than a purely Bollywood movie on the same subject would have been, almost pure romantic comedy. The sheer sense of energy and brightness in most Bollywood movies carries over very well. The singing was, thankfully, dubbed as it is in most Bollywood movies, which does lead to one jarring note: compared to the usual rather richly high-pitched Hindi vocalizations women usually have in Bollywood films, the English dubbing is limp, except for Aishwarya Rai's voice-over, which is an alto with a fair amount of soul. The actual plot would probably have benefited from a Bollywood-length treatment, as parts of it were squashed for time. It actually follows the plot of Pride and Prejudice fairly closely. In general the obstacles and problems in the movie were lighter in tone, because some of the urgency of being a poor unmarried spinster in Regency England simply could not be carried through. However, the scriptwriters similarly lightened the drama of the movie, so it felt pretty balanced, and added some exploration of the similarities and differences of the cultures, which kept a level of richness in the movie. This is what will make me go back to the movie. Gurinder Chadha has taken great delight in playing with the conventions of two different cultural movie styles, and in showing us an India more "real" than even Bollywood sometimes presents it, as well as giving us a "white man in India through the eyes of Indians" movie, instead of Hollywood's normal "India through the eyes of a white man" fare. Indian cultural practices are, thankfully, _not_ explained in the movie anymore than American or British cultural practices are, they're simply lived. The best scene, of many wonderful scenes, for me, was during the closing credits. Gurinder Chadha and her husband re-enact an earlier musical number with Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson (Will Darcy) running through fountains except that unlike the actors, they _kiss on the lips_, which never, ever, ever happens in Bollywood movies, and which becomes fairly obvious to the audience of B&P by the end. That may be the one time I laughed where the rest of the auditorium didn't laugh with me; only the half familiar with Bollywood movies did.