Pride and Prejudice Given Indian Flavour
by: Sherna Noah
- scotsman.com
Bollywood was getting the red carpet treatment in London tonight at the premiere of Bride and Prejudice.The movie by Gurinder Chadha, the director of Bend it Like Beckham, gives Pride and Prejudice a modern twist and puts it in an Indian setting.
Like the Jane Austen novel, the film features a lower middle-class family’s attempts to marry off its daughters to men of a higher social standing.
But the £10 million movie is a world away from the Austen classic – it is an all-singing, all dancing spectacular set in India, London and Los Angeles.
The Bennet family of Hertfordshire become the Bakshis from Amritsar, India.
Heroine Lalita Bakshi (or Elizabeth Bennet) is played by Aishwarya Rai, a former Miss World and Bollywood’s most sought-after actress.
Even Julia Roberts has described the 30-year-old star as the “most beautiful woman in the world”.
The movie, which has received mixed reviews, gives Darcy an up-to-date slant. Played by Martin Henderson, a Los-Angeles based actor from New Zealand, he is a wealthy heir to an American hotel chain.
The heroine’s unbearable suitor is an LA-based accountant rather than a clergyman and Darcy’s love-rival Wickham is a scruffy student traveller, played by the Canadian Daniel Gillies.
Tonight’s West End premiere is being given a Bollywood twist and will feature dancers, Indian music and drummers.
Chadha, who also directed Bhaji on the Beach, joked after making the film, “Once I started adapting the novel, I was convinced Jane Austen was Indian in a previous life.”
She says: “The book’s themes have all been bought out, but with an Indian twist.
“Script editors told me to move away from the book, but I said no. I wanted to come back to the book at every turn.”
Chadha’s last movie Bend it Like Beckham was a huge surprise hit around the world, despite being made for only £2 million.
The British filmmaker, who grew up in Southall, west London, has been hand-picked by US studio bosses for her next project – a big budget action adventure prequel to the Sixties sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.
Bride and Prejudice is released on October 8.
