Bride and Prejudice

I finally got a chance to go see a movie with my friend, Carol. She picked a film I had not heard of, but trusting her taste in movies, I went with it. We went to the Angelika and saw Bride and Prejudice, the new Bollywood/Hollywood hybrid. It turned out to be a lot of fun. In the early nineties there was a cable channel that had Indian programming. For some reason, that is the channel my TV was programmed to whenever I turned it on, so I ended up seeing bits and pieces of Indian movies for a year or so. I couldn't watch one all the way through, because they seemed so silly, but more often than not, I found myself mesmerized by the song and dance numbers that are inevitably in most Indian movies. These films were not high art, but were more like the films that were produced during the Depression and again during WWII in Hollywood, purely escapist fare. Bride and Prejudice is the retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice told from the perspective of a modern day Indian woman. Filtering the classic story through Hollywood and Bollywood actually works, and the singing, dancing, costumes and cultural mix was a lot of fun. I found I was either smiling or laughing throughout the film, and I can’t remember the last time I had that kind of reaction to a film.

The Indian music is mixed/balanced with songs that sound like music you would hear while out clubbing or at a Broadway musical, and the rock, pop, and hip hop influenced music should make it a good soundtrack The actors in the film are wonderful and I think the hype about the female lead is true (Aishwarya Rai); she is probably the most beautiful person I have ever seen on screen. They found an equally stunning actor to play opposite of her in Martin Henderson, a New Zealander who will probably be seen in a lot more Hollywood movies in the coming years. The supporting cast is also terrific and most of the faces are recognizable from other films. The writer/director, Gurinder Chadha, is best known for writing and directing Bend it Like Beckham, and her work on Bride and Prejudice is equally enjoyable.