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PLOT: The meddlesome Mrs. Bakshi hopes to find husbands for her four daughters. Then the oldest girl, Lalita, meets Mr. Darcy -- a spoiled American who knows nothing about India; there is a mutual attraction, but the road to love has roadblocks in the form of pride and prejudice. Not too surprisingly.
Bride & Prejudice is a rollicking good time at the movies, a film that counts big for sheer entertainment value.
Director Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham) has transplanted Jane Austen's novel of 18th century British society into contemporary India, and specifically to the ancient and still traditional city of Amritsar.
Here lives Mrs. Bakshi, a comic figure who longs to have a better place in society and hopes to marry off her daughters to successful men.
Mrs. Bakshi's four daughters include Jaya (Namrata Shirodkar, a former Miss India) who has fallen in love with Balraj (Naveen Andrews). Then there is the next sister, Lalita, who is played by Aishwarya Rai, reigning queen of Bollywood films and someone Julia Roberts described as the most beautiful woman in the world.
Just this once, Roberts might be correct.
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Lalita has decided she will marry only for love, which creates several family problems. For starters, despite pressure from her mother, Lalita wants nothing to do with the bumbling Kholi (Nitin Ganatra), who comes courting from his home in California to find a "traditional" wife.
Through her sister's beau, Balraj, Lalita meets the arrogant Mr. Darcy (Martin Henderson), an American hotel tycoon who seems to know little about India and appears to care even less. He's attracted to Lalita, and she to him, but the course of true love never did run smooth. Their relationship gets off on the wrong foot. Then, as you might expect, it gets worse, but a happy ending is a given.
The Bennet sisters may be called the Bakshi sisters here, but Bride & Prejudice tells, more or less, the same story Jane Austen told about love, marriage and social position. Only with singing and dancing. The big draw in Bride & Prejudice is the Bollywood influence, with all the dazzling visual display that entails.
The film has lavish (and humorous) song and dance scenes, with fantastic choreography and ornate costumes. Chadha manages to be playful with both the work of Jane Austen and the formulas of Bollywood film; the result is a wildly entertaining hybrid.
And take note -- if you see Bride & Prejudice at the Cumberland theatre, you will also see, beforehand, the Oscar nominated short film, Ryan. What a deal.
(This film is rated G)