Bride and Prejudice

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a good Jane Austen movie is witty, filled with snarky dialogue, remarks on the ridiculousness of common social customs, and pokes fun at the social stratification of a rigid class system. By this criteria, Bride and Prejudice is not a good Jane Austen movie.

Based on Pride and Prejudice but set in modern day India (with forays to London and Los Angeles), Bride and Prejudice has none of the spark or wit of Austen. It follows the rural Indian Bakshi family with its four daughters all of marriageable age (Kitty was cut). Balraj Bingley (Naveen Andrews) comes to town when a friend gets married, bringing an American friend William Darcy (Martin Henderson) along for the trip. Bingley soon falls for the eldest Bakshi daughter Jaya (Namrata Shirodkar) while Darcy falls for her sister Lalita (Aishwarya Rai). Along with Bingley's sister Kiran (Indira Varma) the four set out for a local resort. While having their fun in the sun, Lalita runs into Johnny Wickham and is immediately infatuated. It doesn't hurt that Darcy, whom she dislikes, seems to hate him. Lalita invites Wickham to visit, setting up his meeting with sister Lahki (Peeya Rai Chowdhary) and increasing the tension with Darcy. At the same time, distant cousin Mr. Kholi (Nitin Chandra Ganatra) comes calling, looking for a traditional Indian bride. Things progress from there in a weird, skewed version of Austen.

The problem isn't so much with the story, although I did have some issues with that. The problem is with the writing and the characters and the casting. Darcy isn't the least bit arrogant and overbearing. He comes across as timid and shy and he seems to fall in love with Lalita at first glance. He acts the lovesick fool pretty much from that point on, and Lalita just seems cruel when she spurns him so crushingly. It's disconcerting to have her spout out insults at a man who's been quiet and well-mannered and seemingly done nothing to inspire such enmity. Sure, Darcy refuses to dance with her once on the day they meet, but he doesn't know the steps and is in a sea of people he's never met before. Lalita seems to almost put words into Darcy's mouth as they're at the resort, reacting as if he'd said the most horrible things about her beloved India even though he didn't. Part of this was the writing. Part of it was Henderson's inability to act. He was essentially eye candy and Darcy in any incarnation demands more.

Many of the other characters seem whitewashed too. Kiran Bingley always seems to be enjoying herself and, although definitely better dressed than the locals, never appears to lord it over them or come across as superior. When the Bakshis visit London, they ring up the Bingleys and come to visit. When Kiran tells them Balraj isn't there, there's no condescension, no sense that she's trying to keep Balraj and Jaya apart. Darcy's mother (Marsha Mason in the Lady Catherine role) never seems that disapproving although she is a bit distant.

Lalita wasn't whitewashed, but because everyone else was her acerbic remarks came across as catty and mean. Rai was good in the role, but without a stronger Darcy it didn't matter. She was also too pretty for the role with an almost ethereal beauty that seemed more suited for Jane than Elizabeth. She certainly had fine eyes, even if Darcy never once remarked on them.

The actor who really stole the show, though, was Nitin Chandra Ganatra. His vile, social hanger-on with no table manners and archaic views on the role of women in the world was a dead-on Mr. Collins. He was revolting and when Mr. Bakshi delivers his version of "Your mother will never speak to you again if you do not marry Mr. Kholi and I will never speak to you again if you do" it really cemented Mrs. Bakshi as a woman intent on marrying off her daughters no matter what and Mr. Bakshi as a man who cared about his daughters. It was just about the only line taken from the original story that worked (even though it was abbreviated and lacks the great "unhappy alternative" lead-in of the original).

Snarky dialogue is rare. Those few lines taken directly from Austen seem out of place because the characters saying them are not the same. When Darcy proposes using a paraphrase of the Austen speech, it's the first time we've seen him make even a slightly disparaging remark about Lalita or her family. When he tells Lalitha about Wickham's sordid past he seems blase about it. When Chanda (Sonali Kulkarni in the Charlotte Lucas role) gives her version of the "I am not a romantic" speech it has no meaning because it's exactly the second time we've heard her character say anything so we can only take her word for it - we've seen no evidence for ourselves.

The movie moves along at a fairly slow pace until Darcy's proposal. Then, all of a sudden, the movie starts moving extremely quickly. In the next fifteen minutes Lahki runs off with Wickham, Darcy rescues her, Lalita switches from hatred to being desperately in love with Darcy, Jaya and Balraj get engaged, and both couples marry. Boom, we've wrapped everything up, it's done. While I wasn't thrilled with the way everything was unraveling before the proposal, it at least felt like they were trying to be somewhat true to Pride and Prejudice. Afterwards, it's like someone realized that the movie was getting too long and said "okay, we still need to do these three things before we can end it. Quickly, people." The result left me somewhat dazed.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet is the music. Someone thought it would be a good idea to turn this into a musical. Whoever that was should be shot. The dance scenes at the initial wedding and at a later social gathering were great and appropriate, but the random song breakouts weren't. The problem is that they're not just characters breaking into song but remaining in character, but rather somewhat surrealistic and off-the-wall sequences that were meant to be symbolic rather than literally move the story along. One of these songs, "No Life without Wife", made fun of Mr. Kholi and was very amusing. It could almost take the place of a late night gossip session between the sisters and as such I had less problem with it than the other songs, but really I would have preferred to lose all of the songs.

Bride and Prejudice had a lot of potential, but ultimately it wasn't a very good movie. It did a poor job of deciding which bits of the Austen to keep and which to drop, it lacked any of the wit and snarkiness of the original material, it featured whitewashed characters including a very mild-mannered Darcy, and it randomly broke out into song and dance just because it could. If you're in the mood for Pride and Prejudice go watch one of the earlier adaptations. If you're in the mood for an updated Austen movie, go see Clueless. If you're in the mood for Indian vs. Western culture clash, go see Bend It Like Beckham. All of them are much better than Bride and Prejudice.