Themes: Opposites Attract, Culture Clash, Looking For Love
Main Cast: Aishwarya Rai, Martin Henderson, Anupam Kher, Nadira Babbar, Naveen Andrews
Release Year: 2004
Country: US/UK
Run Time: 110 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
The very British sensibilities of Jane Austen are introduced to the exotic flavors of the Bollywood musical in this romantic comedy with songs from the director of Bend It Like Beckham, Gurinder Chadha. Lalita Bakshi (Aishwarya Rai) is the lovely and eligible daughter of her socially ambitious mother and father (Nadira Babbar and Anupam Kher). Mother and father want to be sure that Lalita, the most beautiful of their four daughters, settles down with a man worthy of her, but she has proven resistant to matchmaking, announcing that she will choose her own husband, and will choose him for love. While mother is keen on the profoundly annoying Kholi (Nitin Chandra Ganatra), Lalita has had her head turned by a handsome vagabond from England, Johnny Wickham (Daniel Gilles). But while attending the wedding of a friend, Lalita meets Will Darcy (Martin Henderson), a college buddy of family friend Raj (Naveen Andrews) who is the son of a wealthy hotel magnate. Lalita finds that Will makes a strong impression on her -- she can't stand him, but she also can't get him out of her mind. Will feels the same way about her, and as they inadvertently chase one another over three continents, will morbid fascination grow into true love? Bride and Prejudice marked the first English-speaking role for Aishwarya Rai, who had firmly established herself as India's leading female star when this film was made. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Although it made less than a fifth as much at the U.S. box office, Gurinder Chadha's follow-up to Bend It Like Beckham is a lot truer to the joyous Bollywood traditions that lurk in the background of her international soccer hit. Bride and Prejudice, Chadha's Indian take on the Jane Austen novel, also benefits from what should have been a crossover breakthrough for Aishwarya Rai -- voted the world's most beautiful woman by a consensus of 2005 Internet polls -- but didn't turn out to be the same career-making boost that Keira Knightley got from Beckham. Bride is quite literally light on its feet, as it serves up numerous breathtaking Indian song-and-dance numbers, deliriously choreographed in a rainbow of colors. The weaker Broadway-influenced numbers are more abrupt, but they still contribute to Chadha's commendable balance between intimate character development and large-scale production design. Chadha also tones down the "talkative ethnic mother humor" that undermined Beckham, lending a greater respect and believability to the Bakshi family, whose elders are torn between landing rich husbands for their daughters (the mother) and letting them follow their bliss (the father). Rai does an excellent job fashioning a modern feminist role model who refuses to play her ascribed cultural role, yet still shows exceptional fondness for her roots. Opposite her as Darcy, Martin Henderson deserves kudos for the soft-spoken dignity that gradually redeems his initial tactlessness. Chadha's chaste approach to the material -- the characters never even kiss -- prevents certain scenes from reaching full catharsis. And a fistfight that takes place in a movie theater, echoing the fisticuffs taking place onscreen, is pretty clichéd. But these are minor grievances in an otherwise unqualified success. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
The plot closely follows the plot of Pride and Prejudice, with many elements compacted to brief references. Some character names remain the same, while others are changed slightly, using localized names with similar pronunciation (such as Lalita for Lizzy).
Lalita Bakshi is a daughter of a farmer in Amritsar. She has three sisters, Jaya, Maya, and Lakhi. Lalita is introduced to William Darcy, an American businessman, but initially deems him to be self-absorbed and resists his advances. Meanwhile, William's friend Balraj and Jaya fall in love, much to the delight of Jaya's mother, who wants her daughters to marry rich men. Meanwhile, a distant relative of the family named Kholi decides that he wishes to marry a beautiful Indian girl. Though Kholi is Indian, he has lost most of his roots in America. As he is very rich, Lalita's mother offers Lalita's hand to him. Kholi is unromantic, vain, and disgusting, so Lalita quickly rejects his offer. Kholi leaves the house and settles for marrying Lalita's best friend, Chandra. Lakhi falls in love with Johnny Wickham, whose mother was Darcy's childhood nanny. Darcy tries to warn Lalita about Johnny, without revealing he impregnated Georgie, Darcy's younger sister, when she was sixteen years old, but she assumes Darcy is simply jealous of his romantic rival.
Lalita, her mother, and sisters go to Los Angeles to attend the wedding of Chandra and Kholi. Lalita and Darcy begin to spend time together, and she overcomes her misgivings and falls in love with him.
William proposes to her, but Lalita declines because William discouraged his friend Balraj from having a relationship with her sister, and she leaves for India, stopping over in London.
Lakhi runs off with Johnny, and everyone is worried. William flies back to London and, with Lalita's help, rescues the younger sister. They fly back to India, where Lalita and William, and Jaya and Balraj get married in a double wedding.
Cast
Names in parentheses are the characters in the original Austen novel.
Ashanti sings "Take Me to Love" and "Touch My Body" in the film. According to director Gurinder Chadha in "making-of" extras on the DVD release, Ashanti's appearance in the film is an homage to the tradition of a celebrity making a cameo appearance to sing a song that has no direct involvement in the plot in Bollywood films.
When Lalita is in the hotel of Goa with Darcy and Kiran, she gets a book out of the handbag. This book is "Pride and Prejudice", the book on which the movie is based, obviously.
