Movie: Bride and Prejudice

Actors: Aishwarya Rai, Martin Henderson
Director: Gurinder Chadha, Producer: no idea

We’ve been reading the hype for ages about the fantastic new film from the woman who directed surprise low budget hit 'Bend it Like Beckham' This was going to be a cross-cultural retelling of 'Pride and Prejudice', spanning India, London, and Los Angeles, and even better, it was to star the Queen of Bollywood, Aishwarya Rai, in her first English-speaking role.

In a nutshell; here`s the plot; Lalita, a girl from Amritsar with three eligible sisters meets Mr. Darcy, rich American hotelier, in the middle of a monsoon wedding. Through a comedy of errors they manage to alienate each other more than beautiful people should, and it`s a chase across three continents for them to clear up their misunderstandings and fall madly in love with one another. In the meanwhile, Lalita`s eldest sister finds a perfect groom, the youngest runs away with a backpacker, and there`s enough dancing and singing to put any Bollywood movie to shame.

So what went wrong? It`s hard to know where to begin. The biggest problem is the movie`s star, Aishwarya Rai, who doesn`t really know how to act and has more in common with a Halloween zombie than a Hollywood star. She has two expressions throughout the entire movie - petulant stare and coy giggle; she delivers all her important speeches in a whiny monotone, and she lacks chemistry with her costar, Martin Henderson. As Will Darcy, Henderson is the best part of the movie but it would have been wiser casting for Lalita`s Darcy to have been an ABCD than a white American {at least then he would have been able to pronounce her name properly instead of calling her 'Lolita' throughout).

Equally disturbing is the plot, which is lifted from that big Western hit novel, as are hundreds of Bollywood movies. But Chadha`s attempts to turn what is basically a study in English social mores and customs into a Bollywood blockbuster have distorted this wonderful classic beyond all recognition. By broadening the humor, changing the cultural context and introducing the usual cast of idiotic caricatures (grasping, scheming Indian mother, NRI suitor with braying laugh, American mother-cum-racist) Chadha has turned a keen observation of society disguised as genteel comedy into a slapstick grotesquerie with too many insider jokes.

Obviously - as with any Bollywood movie - you have to suspend your disbelief at any obvious holes in the plot. But on some level the movie still has to make sense and 'Bride and Prejudice' just never does. It makes no sense why Darcy falls for Lalita. It makes no sense why Balraj falls for her sister Jaya. It makes no sense how Lucky runs away from home with Johnny Wickham and then returns back and everyone acts like she only went off to have coffee with a man who, in the original, is a known Casanova. We`re told that all of this happens and we have to just swallow it unquestioningly. Chadha has forgotten that both fairytales and horror stories have to be authentic if they want to be convincing.

When Chadha tries to tap the imagery and sensuality of Bollywood, she doesn’t quite make it. The English songs are hideous and sound like a tired ripoff of the Bollywood Dreams soundtrack. The dancing is uninspired and pointless. The costumes are showy but Elizabeth Bennett was never meant to be a beauty so the focus on Aishwarya`s rippling hair, “swimming pool” eyes, and fabulous figure are distracting and annoying. And the touches that are meant to be evocative - Darcy and Lalita dancing through fountains, Maya doing the cobra dance, Darcy turning up in the end with a dhol around his neck, springing up in the middle of the drummers at Jaya`s wedding - are more likely to evoke groans of horror or embarrassment than any excitement or laughter. This is not the advertisement for Indian 'cool' that its director intended it to be.

'Bride and Prejudice' is probably going to go down as a mistake in Chadha`s career; an experiment that should have been left in the lab rather than being launched in theaters. Chadha`s gravest mistake of all is underestimating the intelligence and savvy of her audiences. Bollywood movies may look simplistic and formulaic on the outside, but imitating and parodying them does not a smash hit make. For all its OTT-ness, there`s real magic in the movies of Bollywood, and 'Bride and Prejudice', sad to say, never manages to make it happen.