Bride & Prejudice (2005)

Posted September 29, 2010 by Whitney in movie review / 9 Comments

Bride-and-prejudice
Director:
Gurinder Chadha
Writers: Jane Austen (novel), Paul Mayeda Berges
Stars: Martin Henderson, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Nadira Babbar
Release Date: March 11, 2005

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice gets a Bollywood treatment.

Maybe it’s because I’ve become accustom to Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, but I had difficulty with Bride and Prejudice.

Bride and Prejudice is an Indian retelling of Pride and Prejudice complete with bolly dancing.  Will Darcy is like Paris Hilton, a somewhat self-centered party animal leading a life of leisure due to a family-owned hotel chain.  Jaya, our Elizabeth Bennet becomes disgusted by his behavior but is constantly thrown  into situations involving him.

Now we come to my pet peeves.  For starters there are only four daughters instead of the five named in the book (Mary always gets the short end of the stick)  It bothered me that they left out a character even if she was minor compared to others.

Their cousin Collins was extremely annoying and was grossly exaggerated, being portrayed like a white guy who wants to be a black gangster.  He also had a laugh which could only be compared to the braying of a donkey, acting like nails on a blackboard.

I think if this hadn’t been a Jane Austen adaptation and just advertised as a chick flick I would be more lenient or accepting but as a take on Pride and Prejudice, it left me eye-rolling.

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9 responses to “Bride & Prejudice (2005)

  1. I agree — if you're going to do a retelling of a story, then you should include all of the characters, no matter how minor. I mean, sure, you may not need the grocer or the milkman, but all of the sisters need to be in there!

  2. I really liked this one, even as an Indian and a Jane Austen book lover, I agree with you completely…I wanted all the sisters to be there and Collins was just….what you said.

  3. SH

    The prejudice part of it was all because of misunderstandings, and the misunderstandings were quite funny. But as a take on Pride and Prejudice, I don't think it was a great one. The novel was just thinly veiled in the movie. I don't even remember the cousin Collins in the movie :O

  4. I remember watching this with my mom. We loved it, just because it was so hilariously over-the-top. It's definitely not the best Austen retelling, but it sure was funny.

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