Chadha Rounds Beckham Bend
by: Sneha Hazarika
- filmstew.com
Although Bride and Prejudice, filmmaker Gurinder Chadha’s homegrown take on Jane Austen’s classic novel, debuted at the top of the British box office earlier this month, critical reaction has been decidedly mixed. Starring a mix of American, British and Indian actors, Chadha's follow-up to her hugely successful 2002 effort Bend It Like Beckham opened simultaneously October 8th in the United Kingdom, Ireland and India, ahead of its anticipated December U.S. rollout. While Gurinder’s direction and some of the performances have been praised, it is heroine Aishwarya Rai’s performance that has reportedly generated most of the attention, impressing among others Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann. The actress, a former Miss World often referred to as the Indian Audrey Hepburn, helped Bride and Prejudice take in 1.67 million pounds its first week in the UK and Ireland, knocking off the romantic comedy Wimbledon from the top spot.
Ironically, in India, the English-language version is for the most part doing much better than the Hindi version, although even the former has been plagued by a public perception of dull promos and an uninteresting publicity campaign. Still, the multiplex masses in India that have seen it are so far giving Bride and Prejudice good word-of-mouth and helping generate a perfectly reasonable per screen average.
Gurinder has described Bride and Prejudice as a ‘very British Asian film’ that incorporates notions of India, England and America, and a way for the British citzen to pay tribute to her home country. Along with Rai and American actor Martin Henderson, the cast features veteran Indian actors Anupam Kher, Nadira Babbar and Namrata Shirodkar, as well as British artists Naveen Andrews, Indira Varma, Nitin Ganatra, Sonali Kulkarni, Meghna Kothari, Peeya Rai Choudhury and Daniel Gillies.
Bride and Prejudice is the second time that Aishwarya Rai is venturing into Austen territory. Her South Indian language film "Kandukondain Kandukondain" was based on another Austen classic, Sense and Sensibility. Bride and Prejudice is the former Ms. World’s first international film and, if it takes off stateside, could help Aishwarya’s career in the same way that Bend It Like Beckham nudged Keira Knightley towards the limelight of Pirates of the Caribbean and King Arthur.
