BRIDE AND PREJUDICE

UK, 2004, 107 minutes, Colour.
Aishwarya Rai, Martin Henderson, Nadira Babbar, Navine Andrews, Namrata Shirodkar, Daniel Gillies, Indira Varma, Nitin Ganatra, Alexis Bledel, Marsha Mason, Ashanti.
Directed by Gurinder Chadha.

Well, here’s a cheerful how d’you do!

Gurinder Chadha has made two British films with Indian themes, Bhaji on the Beach and Bend it Like Beckham. She also made the interesting Thanksgiving multi-racial film in the US, What’s Cooking. Why not follow the lead of Mira Nair who has done Bollywood with Monsoon Wedding and followed it with a version of a British classic, Vanity Fair? Better still, why not combine Bollywood style with an updating of a classic novel? Jane Austen meets India.

It works very well indeed. For those who want to see Bollywood colour, costumes, décor and, of course, many songs and dances, there all here at the drop of a hat and cane. They are quite lavish. The setting is Amritsar with a holiday on the beachfront in Goa.

For those who are wondering whether Jane Austen can transcend the 19th century (well, Emma really did in Clueless), they can be reassured. Bride & Prejudice keeps very close to the original plot, even keeping some of the names, especially Mr Darcy (now a prejudiced American played by New Zealander, Martin Henderson (The Ring, Torque)) and the villain, Wickham.

The Bennets are now the Bakhshis, Mr Bakshi is still henpecked by a loud and vulgar Mrs Bakhshi but is supportive of his daughters, Lalita and Jaya (for Elizabeth and Jane). There is also the snobbish Miss Bingley and her brother, Balraj. The eccentric suitor, Mr Collins, is now Mr Kholi who has absorbed American culture – at its most blatantly American.

One of the features of Bollywood films is that they are set in an unreal affluent world that gives no indication of poverty or hunger. They are truly escapist. And the characters here can also escape for visits to London and to California – which will make British and American audiences just that bit more comfortable watching what might be for some an exotic confection.

Jane Austen understood human nature in the microcosms where her novels are set. This understanding has made a very entertaining transition to India.

1.The director? Her films? Bridging the West and India?

2.The use of Bollywood styles, the popularity of this kind of storytelling, colour, song, broad comedy, bright?

3.The use of Jane Austen’s plot, the adaptation to the present, to India and the UK?

4.The integration of the songs into the Jane Austen plot, the variety of Jane Austen moods? Dramatised by the songs?

5.The Bollywood qualities, the flamboyance, the music and the rhythms, the dance, costumes, heightened, farce and melodrama?

6.Jane Austen’s focus on marriage, love, arranged marriages? The traditions? As applied to India? The UK? The United States?

7.Jane Austen’s interest in wealth and poverty? Contemporary wealth and poverty? Especially in the United States?

8.The friendship between Darcy and Bingley? Bingley’s sister? The movement between England and the United States? The illustrations of pride and prejudice? Dance, inhibitions? Snide comments? The parents and their perceptions of Darcy and Bingley? Darcy’s snobbery, wealth? Academic? Advice?

9.Lalita’s family, the Indian equivalent of Jane Austen’s Bennett family? The quiet father, the loud mother? The plans, the chatter with the other mothers? The getting together, the dancing? The reverse snobbery? The cousin from the United States? The house? The focus on each member of the family, each of the daughters? Wickham and his proposals? The Indian family moving around India, to the United States, to England? The end? The father and his support of Lalita and her decisions? His detached irony?

10.Darcy and his family, the relationship with Wickham? Wickham and Darcy’s sister? Bewilderment, gauche? The visit to Goa? The attraction, the dismay? The advice, the hotel? Wickham and Lalita and Darcy’s attack? In the US, the mother and the arrangements, Georgie, Wickham and the help in London?

11.Bingley, Jaya, the dance, Darcy and his perspective? The contrast with London, Bingley’s absence? The end?

12.Lalita in herself, her place in the family, her support from her father, her friends and their support, her mother and her being an interferer? Darcy, the dances? The dream sequences? The visit to Goa? Wickham and the flirtation and her disbelief? Together with Darcy? In the US, her mother, sharing with her friends? Her anger? London, Wickham at the end?

13.Wickham, India? The dancing? The sequences in Goa? Lalita and the sharing? His leave, luck? In the UK, leaving, the true story?

14.The relationship between Lalita and Jaya, the other sisters? The snake dance?

15.The United States, the farce, Mr Kohli and his being the equivalent of Mr Collins? His suit? His awkwardness? His rejection?

16.America, the farce, manners, the song, the crass Mr Kohli, the refusal?

17.The United Kingdom, the resolution? The mother, Georgie and her change of heart?

18.The meeting with Katherine Darcy, her attitude, her son?

19.The resolution in the manner of Jane Austen? The pairs, the marriages, the issues of pride and prejudice, wealth? The cross-cultural interactions and resolutions?