Bride & Prejudice

Well, God help me, I enjoyed it. Director Gurinder Chadha's follow-up to smash hit "Bend it Like Beckham" is enjoyable nonsense, an earnestly acted mess of vibrant Bollywood musical sequences (sometimes set to English-language songs) and romantic pap. It doesn't seem to take itself seriously at all, which instantly puts it ahead of most nonsense. Eh, it's pointless to go on any further. It's rubbish, really, I'm not quite sure why I sat through it but bizarrely it manages to be a lot of fun. Chadha is a solid enough director to keep things more or less interesting, and the musical sequences are pulled off with aplomb. Naveen Andrews is good here as well.

6/10

Went to see that movie twice and it only came out on the 22nd December in France!!! Full of color and great music!! If u want to spend a really nice time in cinema and laughing your head off over Mr Kholi, go at once.... And if u wanna check out nice a nice guy , go at least for Mr Will Darcy!! All jokes aside, Ash's first "american" movie is a success. They are all acting greatly and makes us want to go and visit Amritsar!! A big surprise also for hip-hop lovers: Ashanti's appearance for "Payal Bajake"'s song. The landscapes are wonderful. East really meets West.. and it's an enjoyable mix or how to teach a Westerner that he doesn't have it all...And as in all of Chandha movie's, the end is a delight!! ENJOY!!

Well, it's pretty hard, isn't it, to write a spoiler for a film which is based on such a well-known, well-loved novel! I will show my hand here and say that I am a Janeite. However, I am not a purist and I like many Jane Austen adaptations that many Janeites don't (for example I like 'Mansfield Park'). I enjoyed 'Bride and prejudice' for its colour and fun. The attempt to update 'P&P' to a contemporary Indian setting worked well most of the time, with the translation to India being effective because it is a society where arranged marriages are still an accepted way to go. The script did a pretty good job of capturing the essence of the story whilst playing around with some of the details eg cutting out the fifth daughter whose role in the story is pretty minimal, and making the 'tyrant' in Darcy's life his mother not his aunt (a more realistic situation in its modern setting). I loved the 'no life without a wife' song and dance routine though it reminded me at times of the 'Matchmaker' song in 'Fiddler on the roof'. However, the film suffered a little, for a number of reasons, the main ones being that it left the Bollywood- style when it went to Hollywood (which changed the tone of the film), it didn't really find a good way to make Wickham as wicked as he is in the original, and there did not seem to be the same desperate need to be married as there was for the Bennet sisters in 'P&P'. These modern Indian women had jobs and could, it appeared, be independent without having husbands, removing the urgency that drives its 'P&P' original. Despite this, though, it does manage to incorporate some of the satire against pomposity and the arrogance of the moneyed class that makes 'P&P' more than a simple romance. Overall, then, I found it a fun film and an entertaining take on my favourite novel.

A fun movie. I watched it twice, once at the theater and once on DVD. The DVD has extended versions of the song and dance sequences which were also great.

What I like about this movie: Well, first of all, the fun factor. The pretty stars, the toe-tapping music, the dance sequences, the scenery of India, England and the US. These things all added up to pretty tasty eye-candy.

I also liked the international flavor and themes of the film. As was pointed out in the DVD commentary, it was a British film with a decidedly non-Eurocentric point of view. It was this while being a populist film at the same time. There are Indian actors from India, as well as British Indians and US Indians. Of course, there are white folk too.

The movie handles conflict between "Western arrogance" and native defensiveness without making one side more righteous than the other. And, of course, in the end, love conquers all. Well, love and wealth conquers all... Which leads me to what I didn't like about the film.

I have to admit, one reason I liked the film was because I loved looking at the beautiful, young actresses. So, maybe it is a tad hypocritical of me that the biggest turn-off was that the main appeal of the male protagonists (to the female characters) was their wealth and power.

Anyway. I thoroughly enjoyed the film and recommend it highly.

OK, if you don't like people breaking into song unexpectedly, don't go see this movie - let me just say that upfront!

I went to see this re-work of my favourite novel and thought it would be atrocious and envisaged walking out of the theatre in disgust in advance. What I got was an explosion of colour and music, Bollywood style, and sure some of the songs were pretty awful, but hey, there were a few terrible numbers in Grease too, and I still love that movie!

The lead players were all virtually unknown to me but they were perfect in their roles. The role of Lalita (the Elizabeth role in the original book) was perfectly cast - she was beautiful and she really held the whole movie together. And Martin Henderson was perfect as the American version of the disdainful Mr Darcy, this time Mr Will Darcy.

Go and see this film if you are open to something new - it really is quite a faithful re-work of the story, and it is very entertaining.

The only people who won't enjoy this are people who hate musicals with a passion, or people who are purists to the original.

If you liked Chicago, then you can definitely enjoy this one too. (That also had some dodgy old songs, but the story carried you past those parts!)

Bring on the Bollywood!