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Bride and Prejudice

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Bride and Prejudice
Original Poster
Directed byGurinder Chadha
Written byPaul Mayeda Berges
Gurinder Chadha
Jane Austen (novel)
Produced byGurinder Chadha
Deepak Nayar
Starring
CinematographySantosh Sivan
Edited byJustin Krish
Music byAnu Malik
Distributed byMiramax Films (USA)
Pathé Distribution (UK)
Release dates
6 October 2004 (2004-10-06)
United Kingdom
8 October 2004 (2004-10-08)
United States
11 February 2005 (2005-02-11)
Running time
111 minutes
CountriesEngland
United States
India
LanguagesEnglish
Hindi (Some dialogue)
Budget$7 million[1]
Box office$24,716,440[1]

Bride and Prejudice is a 2004 English/American romantic musical 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 released in the United States on 11 February 2005 and was well received by critics.[2]

Plot

The plot is based on Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. Some character names remain the same, while others are changed slightly, using localized names with similar pronunciation (such as Lalita for Elizabeth).

Set in Amritsar, the story follows Lalita Bakshi, a young woman living with her doting father and helping him run the family farming enterprise; her mother, who is determined to marry off her daughters to respectable and wealthy men; and her three sisters, Jaya, Maya, and Lakhi. At a friend's wedding, Lalita meets Will Darcy, a handsome and wealthy American working in his family's hotel business, who has arrived in Amritsar with his long-time friend, the British-Indian barrister Balraj, and Balraj's sister Kiran.

Events roughly parallel those in the novel, punctuated by Bollywood-style song and dance numbers. Darcy resists his attraction to Lalita, who considers him conceited, arrogant, and intolerant toward India and Indian culture. At parties and gatherings, Mrs Bakshi's mindless chatter, Maya's kitschy dancing, and Lakhi's uninhibited flirting astonish Darcy and his friends, and mortify Jaya and Lalita.

Balraj and Jaya fall quickly in love, but misunderstandings and interference by others drag out their courtship. On a trip to Goa with Darcy, Kiran, Balraj and Jaya, Lalita meets and is attracted to Johnny Wickham, Darcy's former friend, and he validates her low opinion of Darcy. Mr Kholi, a rich, crass, clumsy, and ostentatious Americanized relative , proposes to Lalita. After she turns him down, her best friend Chandra agrees to marry him, much to Lalita's confusion and consternation.

When the youngest sister Lakhi runs off with Wickham in London, Darcy and Lalita find the couple and separate them before he can ruin her life, as he almost did to Will's young sister Georgie.

Ultimately, back in India for Jaya and Balraj's wedding, Darcy surprises and wins over Lalita by joining in the traditional drumming, showing that he is learning to appreciate Indian culture. The film ends with the double wedding of Jaya to Balraj and Lalita to Darcy, with the two couples riding on elephants down the streets of Amritsar.

Cast

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

Soundtrack

Title Singers
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
Tumse Kahen Ya, Hum Na Kahen Instrumental

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

The film opened to generally positive reviews. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives Bride and Prejudice a score of 79% based on reviews from 33 critics, with a rating average of 6.6 out of 10.[2]

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".[3]

Professional Reviews
BBC [3]
Rotten Tomatoes [2]
Hollywood.com [4]
USA Today[5]
Rolling Stone [6]
reelviews.net [7]
The New York Times [8]
ABC Australia [9]

References

  1. ^ a b "Bride and Prejudice (2005)". Box Office Mojo. 26 May 2005. Retrieved 8 February 2012.
  2. ^ a b c "bride_and_prejudice". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 27 December 2010.
  3. ^ a b Stella Papamichael, October 2004, BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2004/09/16/bride_and_prejudice_2004_review.shtml
  4. ^ http://www.hollywood.com/review/Bride_and_Prejudice/2434980
  5. ^ http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie-critic-reviews/bride-and-prejudice/
  6. ^ http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/bride-and-prejudice-20050127
  7. ^ http://www.reelviews.net/movies/b/bride_prejudice.html
  8. ^ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/306118/Bride-and-Prejudice/overview
  9. ^ http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s1299386.htm
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