As long as the actors are singing and dancing, Gurinder Chadha's Bride & Prejudice is mildly amusing.
It's when most of them try to act that things border on painful.
Bride & Prejudice is a Bollywood take on Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's classic tale of the misadventures of love.
Lalita Bakshi (Aishwarya Rai) is a well-educated, thoughtful but poor Indian girl who finds herself alternately attracted to and repulsed by the millionaire American hotelier Will Darcy (Martin Henderson).
The audience knows these mismatched, star-crossed lovers belong together -- it's just a matter of them coming to the same conclusion.
Chadha is not so much interested in the intricacies of Austen's story as she is in showing what a big, romantic Bollywood musical looks like filtered through Hollywood traditions.
In the Bollywood epics, characters break into song and dance at the most inopportune or opportune times depending on how much the viewer longs for those old imusicals.
Sadly, Chadha also wants to make a few serious comments about race, class and culture as she did in her exuberant and insightful Bend It Like Beckham.
Each time she does, the film falls flat because Henderson is such a bland, wooden actor.
Darcy is supposed to be a kind of sexual magnet but the only thing that makes Henderson's take on him remotely appealing is the realization the man is filthy rich.
As a travelogue, Bride & Prejudice shows off both India and California at their pristine, fairytale best.
Bride & Prejudice has some genuinely delightful moments at it hints at what could be accomplished by a much more serious attempt to bring Bollywood to Hollywood.
(This film is rated G)
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