I wonder if at any time during the making of this movie writer and director Gurinder Chadha realized her film was going haywire.
Actually, a Bollywoodized version of Jane Austen's novel, "Pride and Prejudice," sounds an interesting, enticing premise. But Chadha, who quite successfully turned a conventional coming-of-age, romantic comedy into the enjoyable "Bend it Like Beckham" (2003), fails miserably this time.
She seems to have an able and willing cast in "Bride and Prejudice," but they just don't click.
The film's two biggest problems: Chadha's insistence on including English-language songs mixed in with a few Hindi Bollywood numbers, and lead actor Martin Henderson as Darcy.
The Hindi songs are bouncy, vivacious, fun to watch. They're well choreographed and fit rather nicely into the story. The same cannot be said of the English songs. I've no idea why Chadha decided to add those in this film. They're clunky, awkward and riddled with laughable lyrics. I realize they're not meant to be taken seriously, but they prove to be tremendously distracting and bog down the story.
The lyrics? Well, that's just rotten writing there. In one song, Lalitha (Aishwarya Rai) sings, "I want a man who'll give some back/Who'll talk to me and not to my rack." Then there's American actor Henderson. A truly horrid casting choice. Henderson lacks charm, screen presence, creates absolutely no chemistry with Rai. He turns Darcy into an utterly vapid, a complete dullard with no personality.
Rai's Lalitha the Elizabeth Bennet character comes across as a strikingly smart, clever, intelligent and self-assured woman. That she would find Henderson's Darcy even remotely attractive asks us to suspend our disbelief a bit too much. The Lalitha-Darcy relationship is tough to swallow.
In Chadha's defense, it's nice to see Indians speak perfect English. Rai speaks flawlessly and Chadha and co-writer Paul Mayeda Berges don't turn her into a stereotype. I've no idea if Rai is the most beautiful woman on the planet. But I bet she comes darn close.
And Rai gives Lalitha a valiant try. But she's saddled with awful dialogue and given poor direction. Also, when a film suddenly stops to turn into a music video, it's hard to get any momentum going. What exactly is the need for the Ashanti performance? Speaking of poor direction and stereotypes, Chadha lets the film come apart completely with the introduction of Mr. Kholi (the film's version of Austen's Mr. Collins), an Indian-born suitor who wants to Lalitha back to his spread in Los Angeles. Nitin Ganatra plays the character so broadly that the caricature gets tiresome within the first few minutes. But we're forced to endure him for too many scenes. It's abundantly clear Chadha deluded herself into thinking this type of over-the-top acting would elicit laughs. Instead, all it does is make you cringe.
If screenwriters pen some good roles for her, Rai has a great future ahead of her in English-language movies. She should be more discerning about what roles she picks. Chadha's film falls apart within the first 20 minutes or so and then does nothing to fix itself. It just keeps going from bad to worse and, eventually, turns downright embarrassing.
Too bad. This one had potential.
Actually, a Bollywoodized version of Jane Austen's novel, "Pride and Prejudice," sounds an interesting, enticing premise. But Chadha, who quite successfully turned a conventional coming-of-age, romantic comedy into the enjoyable "Bend it Like Beckham" (2003), fails miserably this time.
She seems to have an able and willing cast in "Bride and Prejudice," but they just don't click.
The film's two biggest problems: Chadha's insistence on including English-language songs mixed in with a few Hindi Bollywood numbers, and lead actor Martin Henderson as Darcy.
The Hindi songs are bouncy, vivacious, fun to watch. They're well choreographed and fit rather nicely into the story. The same cannot be said of the English songs. I've no idea why Chadha decided to add those in this film. They're clunky, awkward and riddled with laughable lyrics. I realize they're not meant to be taken seriously, but they prove to be tremendously distracting and bog down the story.
The lyrics? Well, that's just rotten writing there. In one song, Lalitha (Aishwarya Rai) sings, "I want a man who'll give some back/Who'll talk to me and not to my rack." Then there's American actor Henderson. A truly horrid casting choice. Henderson lacks charm, screen presence, creates absolutely no chemistry with Rai. He turns Darcy into an utterly vapid, a complete dullard with no personality.
Rai's Lalitha the Elizabeth Bennet character comes across as a strikingly smart, clever, intelligent and self-assured woman. That she would find Henderson's Darcy even remotely attractive asks us to suspend our disbelief a bit too much. The Lalitha-Darcy relationship is tough to swallow.
In Chadha's defense, it's nice to see Indians speak perfect English. Rai speaks flawlessly and Chadha and co-writer Paul Mayeda Berges don't turn her into a stereotype. I've no idea if Rai is the most beautiful woman on the planet. But I bet she comes darn close.
And Rai gives Lalitha a valiant try. But she's saddled with awful dialogue and given poor direction. Also, when a film suddenly stops to turn into a music video, it's hard to get any momentum going. What exactly is the need for the Ashanti performance? Speaking of poor direction and stereotypes, Chadha lets the film come apart completely with the introduction of Mr. Kholi (the film's version of Austen's Mr. Collins), an Indian-born suitor who wants to Lalitha back to his spread in Los Angeles. Nitin Ganatra plays the character so broadly that the caricature gets tiresome within the first few minutes. But we're forced to endure him for too many scenes. It's abundantly clear Chadha deluded herself into thinking this type of over-the-top acting would elicit laughs. Instead, all it does is make you cringe.
If screenwriters pen some good roles for her, Rai has a great future ahead of her in English-language movies. She should be more discerning about what roles she picks. Chadha's film falls apart within the first 20 minutes or so and then does nothing to fix itself. It just keeps going from bad to worse and, eventually, turns downright embarrassing.
Too bad. This one had potential.