brianhamilton-76406 Bride and Prejudice is a nice bollywood take on Jane Austen's famous novel. It is fun, colorful and flamboyant and features the ravishing Aishwarya Rai as the main lead. Martin Henderson from New Zealand is more than competent as Darcy and holds his own even in dance sequences. Watch it for the Indianized flavor that the director Gurinder Chadda infuses this old tale with.

Alexander Schuchardt_4173375 What did I just watch? The movie mainly had to do with a rich American man named William Darcy and a Indian girl named Lalita. The movie started in India where William and his friend were attending a wedding. This is where they first meet, and the first encounter wasn't very good.Following this Lalita didn't have a view of William until the end of the movie. The rest of the movie had to do with their love journey and how the will fall in love. This was one of the least favorite movies I have ever seen. I am a newbie when it comes to watching Bollywood movies. But if they're all like this I think I will stick to Hollywood movies. I thought the acting was OK but most of the scene were just cringe worthy.Also the one actor who sounded like a donkey was not entertaining, he was just very annoying and I wish they realizes how annoying that actually was. The plot was OK but very predictable the two people who don't like each other end up falling in love. Very original. I never want to hear another Bollywood song ever again. All the songs beside my lips are waiting were just awful. No Life without Wife made me want to be deaf. I was like listening to Rebeca black's Friday, that's how bad it was. Also it didn't look like they were trying to lip sync it was very obvious they were not singing. Also they had so many pointless songs that we could have gone without. The dances were pretty cool, I liked them for the most part except the snake dance. That made me want to hit my forehead with my palm. But the opening dance was the best part of the entire movie. It had a good start just to crash land. If only the movie was ten minutes long. The sets were pretty cool they one of the only bright spots in a horrible movie.The costumes look very authentic to what you would see in a Bollywood film. I would call this movie more Bollywood because American movies don't have horrendous songs every ten minutes that are really pointless. And the story line was so predictable, in a American movie there would have been a plot twist.What Cultural elements i learned about Indian parents are they gold diggers who just are looking out for them and don't care about what there kids think. Just about how much money the husband has. Also how bad it must feel to be in the kids situation being forced to marry someone that they barely met and know almost nothing about them. Another thing I learned was how uncommon it is for Indian to marry someone of a different ethnicity. They want their grandchildren to be traditional Indians. Also I learned that if you are younger you can't marry until the eldest has married. So if they don't' want to get married you are out of luck. Overall I learned a lot about Indian culture but It was such a bad movie.

marspeach The movie follows P&P pretty closely but obviously changes things to modernize it. The "Bennet" family dynamics are much the same. A friend is getting married and at her engagement party, the family meets the friends of the groom- the Bingleys (Indians from the UK) and their American friend Darcy. There is no Kitty, Mr. and Mrs. Hurst, or Colonel Fitzwilliam character. The scene of "Lady Catherine" trying to tell Lizzy not to get engaged to Darcy did not make the final cut but was included on the DVD as a deleted scene. The DVD itself is great. Along with the deleted scenes, there is a "Making of", commentary, and full musical numbers. And possibly something else that I don't remember… The movie is all fun. It's got great funny musical sequences, bright colors, and good-looking actors and actresses. Some of the acting is really good. Only one characterization really bothered me- Lalita, this version's Lizzy.She was biggest problem with the movie! Her character was just plain NASTY to Darcy. I don't know what he saw in her, besides her good looks. He was a little uncomfortable in the beginning but was trying his best and she just snapped at everything he said. I read on IMDb that Rai did not read the book so as not to be influenced by Elizabeth. Bad move, for sure. And the writing and directing was off for her too. Elizabeth Bennet is not a witch! Why did they make Lalita one? Other than Lalita, this is a really fun film. If you're hesitant about watching Bollywood or other Indian films this is a good compromise.

UnoriginalJess Chadha's Bride and Prejudice is an ambitious project that both succeeds and fails in its premise. Set in India, England and America, Chadha endeavours to transport Bollywood's extravagance and musical numbers to a western setting, and in this, she succeeds. Bride and Prejudice is indeed a fun and colourful film, replete with several song-and-dance routines. The Punjabi wedding dance song, in particular, is a joy to watch. The combination of Bollywood techniques to the Hollywood film is fun, and in this, Chadha succeeds.As an appropriation of Austen's classic, however, the film fails miserably. At a basic level, the plot and narrative of Pride and Prejudice is unchanged, but if subtlety and wit marked Austen's novel, overuse of clunky satire is what marks Chadha's film. Seeming to prefer satire in the form of almost-painful caricatures to subtlety, and loud debates over what is the "real India" to wit, Bride and Prejudice often feels clunky and clichéd, and fails to display the level of charm one expects. Chadha's caricature of the Americanised Indian, Kholi Saab, is almost painful beyond the point of humour.In addition to this, Bride and Prejudice is too obvious in its condemnation of loveless marriages; as though Mr Kholi's absurd caricature and painfully embarrassing comments such as, "Now we have the advantage of home ground" and "Such small caterpillars that turned into beautiful butterflies" are not absurd enough, Chadha feels the need to drill the idea into audiences heads that he is not a match for the spirited Lalitha. This is seen when Lalitha sings, "I don't want a man who's crude and loud/ Wants a pretty wife to make him proud" (the terrible use of rhyme doesn't do much to support the idea of Lalitha's intelligence and wit).Furthermore, where oh where is the handsome but aloof Mr Darcy? Where is his stinging comment, "She is tolerable, I suppose, but hardly enough to tempt me" spurred Lizzie into an indignant rage? Instead we have Martin Henderson using the pathetic pick-up line, "I'm a hopeless dancer, but this looks like you just screw in a light bulb with one hand and pat the dog with the other". Where is the wit, the arrogance, the insult? Instead we are treated with a Darcy whose goofy comments hardly make one stiffen with insult or go weak at the knees.Despite its failure as an appropriation, Bride and Prejudice is an entertaining film. Just make sure you don't go in expecting the same scintillating wit, sizzling exchanges and intellectual enjoyment one would receive from Pride and Prejudice. That, I am afraid, is somewhat scant in this film.