Bride and Prejudice
Starring Aishwarya Rai, Alexis Bledel, and Martin Henderson
Official trailer uploaded by isthemoviegood
Synopsis: It’s a Bollywood inspired twist on Pride and Prejudice, which keeps Darcy as a English man, but makes the Bingleys and the Bennets into Indian families. It follows a similar plot line as the novel, but has modernised the setting, making it into a modern day piece.
It’s a light hearted movie, and is well directed by Gurinder Chadha. Rai delivers a strong performance as Lalita, the Elizabeth Bennet equivalent. Lalita’s just as determined and strong willed and witty as her literary counterpart, shown particularly in the ‘No life without wife’ song, uploaded by Александр Лопарев. The scene also highlights the connection between the four actresses playing the Bennet girls.
Chadha opted to leave out the Kitty equivalent, which is kind of understandable, given that her qualities are so close to Lydia’s and Lydia has the bigger story line in Pride and Prejudice. Jane becomes Jaya, Elizabeth is now Lalita, Mary is Maya and Lydia is Lakhi.
It’s a colourful and uplifting take, I loved it from the first song really, it kind of exploded, and I’ve not seen a Bollywood film before, so it was my first real idea of what they could be like. I enjoyed the way that Chadha chose to introduce Lalita and Jaya, to Bingley and Darcy, at the wedding of one of Lalita’s friends, it’s a nice alteration, and gave the audience chance to see something of the Indian culture that they might not have seen before uploaded by Александр Лопарев. Henderson plays it well, as a man enchanted by Lalita’s beauty, but utterly out of his element in the surroundings. It was also a nice hint of Lalita’s strength, as she and her sisters are in the front line of the dancers. It exposes the traits of the main characters, given that Mrs Bakshi
‘Marriage has come to town’ clip uploaded by TMFMusicBollywood, I liked this song because it included a lot of extras, and was fun with Lalita and her two best friends debating the realities of one of them getting married to a English man.
The charisma that Rai possesses, made up for the fact that this version of Darcy is slightly less memorable than some of the other versions have been. It’s not entirely Henderson’s fault, but Rai is so vivid, and energetic in the role that he needed to do more to match her. Still there is a nice chemistry between them, and I liked the scene between them in the Darcy’s hotel.
It’s not exactly something that a Pride and Prejudice or Austen purist would be likely to seek out, but it’s a nice blending of different elements, and is anchored by one of the most lively and emotionally expressive performances of any actress I’ve seen in the role of Lizzy.
Musings of a thirtysomething woman 