Review of Bride & Prejudice (2004) by Stuart K — 01 Mar 2010

From director Gurinder Chadha, whose 2002 film Bend it like Beckham became a huge international hit, comes this modern and original twist on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, although the scope is widened.

It now spans 3 countries, the tone and structure is like that out of a Bollywood film, but amazingly, it works brilliantly, and it's very enjoyable and is warmly funny. It has the Bakshi family, who live in Amritsar, India.

There are 4 daughters in this family, Lalita (Aishwarya Rai), Jaya (Namrata Shirodkar), Maya (Meghna Kothari) and Lakhi (Peeya Rai Chowdhary). Their parents, (Anupam Kher and Nadira Babbar), want their daughters to marry rich men, Jaya is wooed by Mr.

Balraj (Naveen Andrews) whose American college buddy William Darcy (Martin Henderson) has come over, though Lalita is immune to his charms. However, the family get in touch with one distant relative Mr.

Kholi (Nitin Ganatra), but even Lalita says no to him, he marries her best friend, they go to Los Angeles to attend the wedding where Lalita runs into William again. It's a fast and furious film done with such speed and gusto it's almost hard to keep up with it.

But, it is enjoyable, and the odd Bollywood musical interludes are enjoyable, the cast are energetic and entertaining and it's well shot and it has a good heart as well. What would Austen have made of this??