Bride and Prejudice

Bride and Prejudice
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Gurinder Chadha
Produced by
  • Gurinder Chadha
  • Deepak Nayar
Written by
Based on Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
Starring
Music by Anu Malik
Cinematography Santosh Sivan
Edited by Justin Krish
Distributed by
Release date
  • 6 October 2004 (2004-10-06) (United Kingdom)
  • 11 February 2005 (2005-02-11) (United States)
Running time
 111 minutes[1]
Country
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
  • India
Language
  • English
  • Hindi
  • Punjabi
Budget $7 million[2]
Box office $24.7 million[2]

Bride and Prejudice is a 2004 romantic drama film directed by Gurinder Chadha. The screenplay by Chadha and Paul Mayeda Berges is a Bollywood-style adaptation of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It was filmed primarily in English, with some Hindi and Punjabi dialogue. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 6 October 2004 and in the United States on 11 February 2005. It was well received by critics.[3]

Plot

This story pivots around East meets West theme.

Based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the film revolves around Lalita Bakshi (Aishwarya Rai) who is a young woman living in Amritsar with her parents, her older sister Jaya (Namrata Shirodkar) and two younger sisters, Lakhi (Peeya Rai Chowdhary) and Maya (Meghna Kothari). She also helps her father run the family farming enterprise. Her mother is determined to marry off all her daughters to respectable and wealthy men.

One night, at a friend's wedding ceremony, Lalita meets Mr. Will Darcy (Martin Henderson), a handsome and wealthy American who is a long-time friend of the British-Indian barrister Balraj (Naveen Andrews), and Balraj's sister Kiran (Indira Varma).

Balraj is instantly attracted to Jaya and he sees her from the balcony and Darcy is immediately attracted to Lalita. When the group is introduced, Darcy refuses to dance with Lalita and she considers him conceited, arrogant, and intolerant toward India and Indian culture. After the wedding reception, Balraj asks Mr. Bakshi for permissiont to take Jaya to Goa with him, Darcy and his sister. Mrs. Bakshi interrupts and says that she can go with Lalita.

On their trip to Goa, Lalita meets Wickham (Daniel Gillies), Darcy's former friend, and he validates her low opinion of Darcy. Soon, Lalita and Wickham become friends and she invites him to stay with her family in Amritsar to see the Golden Temple.

When the girls come back from Goa, they are met by their mother who is preparing for a guest. Kohli Saab is a single man living in the U.S. He has come to India to find a "traditional woman" to marry. When he arrives, he is interested in Jaya, but Mrs. Bakshi steers him toward Lalita since Jaya and Balraj are in her opinion, almost engaged.

While Kohli is visiting, Wickham also arrives. Mrs. Bakshi does not want him to stay with them but Mr. Bakshi insists. They go to the Garba together and Lakhi shows Wickham the traditional dance while Lalita is stuck dancing with Kohli. When she sees her friend, Chandra, she leaves Kohli on the dance floor to say hello. While speaking with Chandra, she and Kohli are introduced. Darcy then goes up to Lalita and asks her to dance. She accepts and argues with him about Wickham and Darcy's family. After their dance, Wickham asks Lalita to dance and she accepts.

While Lalita is doing chores around the house, Kohli goes up to her and tells her that he likes her, he wants to marry her and that he has already spoken to her mother who is very excited about their wedding. Lalita rejects him and he is furious. Her mother tells her she must marry him but her father stands by her. Kohli leaves at the same time that a car pulls up with Darcy, Balraj and Kiran. Balraj tells Jaya that he must go back to London but that he will write her.

Wickham then says he must leave as well and the house is quiet again. The girls keep checking their emails to see if anyone writes to them. Neither Balraj nor Wickham write to Jaya or Lalita. However, it is shown that Wickham is writing to Lakhi.

One night, the Bakshi family finds out that Chandra is now engaged to Kohli. Lalita is in shock. She gets a phone call from Chandra inviting them to a big wedding ceremony in California. Jaya is excited because they got to stop by London and see Balraj.

When they arrive in London, Jaya calls Kiran and she invites her for tea. Jaya is excited to see Balraj, but when they go see Kiran, he is not there. He is in New York with his parents because they had traveled to the United States to meet a couple of girls that they wanted him to meet there. Jaya is crushed.

At the airport on their way to the wedding, Lalita, Jaya and Mrs. Bakshi run into Darcy. He offers his first-class seat to Mrs. Bakshi so he can sit next to Lalita for the next 10 hours and 55 minutes. While in California for the wedding, Lalita gets to know Darcy better and starts falling in love with him.

At the wedding, Darcy's sister Georgie (Alexis Bledel) tells Lalita about how Balraj and Darcy are not on speaking terms because he convinced Balraj not to marry a girl in India (Jaya) who had a mother who was just trying to snag a rich husband for her daughter. Lalita excuses herself and runs into Darcy who confesses his feelings for her and asks her to marry him. She refuses and tells him that after he ruined her sister's life, he was the last person on Earth she would ever want to marry.

Back in London on their way back home, Mrs. Bakshi is devastated that they went all the way without even one proposal. Lakhi asks to go shopping. Lakhi meets Wickham and they run away together. When Lalita finds out she, with the help of Mr. Darcy, rescues Lakhi just in time before he destroys her life, as he did to Mr Darcy’s sister - Georgina.

Soon after, Darcy returns to attend the wedding of his friend Balraj to Jaya. In this wedding, he sweeps Lalita off her feet and wins her heart as he shows her his respect for Indian culture by partaking in traditional dances and drumming.

Lalita realizes that indeed Darcy is a rare gem.

The film ends with double wedding of Jaya to Balraj and Lalita to Darcy. The couple sits on elephant and return to their respective homes to live happily ever after ...

Cast

Names in parentheses are the characters in the original Austen novel.

Soundtrack

TitleSingers
Balle Balle Sonu Nigam, Gayatri Iyer
Tumse Kahen Ya, Hum Na Kahen ("Take Me to Love") Udit Narayan, Alka Yagnik
No Life Without Wife Gayatri Iyer, Nisha Mascarenhas, Sowmya Rao
Lo Shaadi Aayi Alka Yagnik, Kunal Ganjawala, Anu Malik
Tumse Kahen Ya, Hum Na Kahen (sad) ("Take Me to Love" reprise) Alka Yagnik
Dola Dola Gayatri Iyer
Payal Bajake (Goa Groove Gayatri Iyer

Production

Bride and Prejudice received funding from the UK Film Council with the stipulation that a majority of filming had to take place in the UK. Locations used include Halton House, Stoke Park Club, Turville, and Cobstone Windmill in Buckinghamshire, and Southall, Somerset House, Little Venice, the London Eye, and the National Film Theatre in London. Other locations include the Golden Temple of Amritsar, the beaches of Goa, the Grand Canyon, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and Santa Monica Beach.

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 is an homage to the tradition of a celebrity making a cameo appearance to sing an "item number", a song that has no direct involvement in the plot in Bollywood films.

Critical reception

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives Bride and Prejudice a score of 64% based on reviews from 133 critics, with a rating average of 6.1 out of 10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A colorful and energetic adaptation of Austen's classic."[3]

Stella Papamichael at the BBC noted that "swapping corsets for saris, and polite pianoforte for the bhangra beat, director Gurinder Chadha reinvigorates Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice with fun and flamboyance".[4]

Professional reviews
BBC [4]
Rotten Tomatoes [3]
Hollywood.com [5]
USA Today[6]
Rolling Stone [7]
reelviews.net [8]
The New York Times [9]
ABC Australia [10]

References

  1. ↑ "Bride and Prejudice (12A)". British Board of Film Classification. 24 September 2004. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Bride and Prejudice (2005)". Box Office Mojo. 26 May 2005. Retrieved 8 February 2012.
  3. 1 2 3 "Bride and Prejudice". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved April 20, 2018.
  4. 1 2 Stella Papamichael, October 2004, BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2004/09/16/bride_and_prejudice_2004_review.shtml
  5. ↑ Knolle, Sharon (15 February 2005). "Bride and Prejudice Review". Hollywood.com. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  6. ↑ "Showtimes, reviews, trailers, news and more - MSN Movies". movies.msn.com. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  7. ↑ "Bride and Prejudice". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  8. ↑ Berardinelli, James. "Reelviews Movie Reviews". Reelviews Movie Reviews. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  9. ↑ Dargis, Manohla (11 February 2005). "Mr. Darcy and Lalita, Singing and Dancing". NYTimes.com. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  10. ↑ "At the Movies: Bride and Prejudice". Abc.net.au. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
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