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A Bollywood twist to Jane Austen

LONDON, OCT. 5. A middle-class family. Four marriageable daughters. Tension between romantic love and social duty. These are elements fit for a Bollywood epic of sorts — and the plot of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's sharply observed portrait of English society at the turn of the 19th century.

Austen aficionados and Indian film fans gathered in London's West End on Monday for the premiere of British director Gurinder Chadha's Bride and Prejudice, which transposes Austen's comedy of manners to modern-day India.

It is, Ms. Chadha says, a perfect match. ``Once I started adapting the novel, I was convinced Jane Austen was Indian in a previous life,'' said Ms. Chadha, whose last film was the cross-cultural soccer comedy Bend it Like Beckham.

Dozens of fans gathered outside London's Palladium Theatre — bedecked for the evening with orange and pink ribbons — to see the film's stars including former Miss World and current Bollywood leading light Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson, the film's leading man.

Bride and Prejudice, which opens in Britain and India on Friday, transforms Austen's Bennet family into the Bakshis of Amritsar. Rai plays the spirited small-town girl Lalita Bakshi, drawn into a sparring relationship with Mr. Darcy, the wealthy heir to an American hotel chain, while courted by a pompous accountant (Nitin Ganatra).

A global hit

Several of Ms. Chadha's previous films have drawn sharp comedy from the lives of South Asians in Britain. Bhaji on the Beach (1993) sent a group of middle-aged Indian women on a seaside picnic. Bend It Like Beckham, released in 2002, centred on the rebellious, soccer-crazy daughter of a traditionalist Sikh family in England. The sprightly film, made for a relatively modest £2 million, became a global hit, charming audiences even in the soccer-shy United States.

``It's hard to follow up such a successful film,'' said Ganatra. ``But I think she's doing it beautifully. I'm proud to be part of such an international film. It's not quite a Bollywood film, it's not quite a British film and it's not quite a Hollywood film.''

Rai said that bringing together Indian, British and American actors was initially tough. ``We learned to work with each other and we all found common ground. In the end we had a great time.''

Bride and Prejudice features Bollywood-style song and dance and a mixed Indian, British and American cast in a hybrid romantic comedy.

Elements of the film, Ms. Chadha said, ``feel like the movie Grease.'' But she said her ultimate goal was to stay faithful to Austen's book and its timeless dissection of social mores.

``The book's themes have all been brought out, but with an Indian twist,'' said Ms. Chadha, who is lined up to direct a big-budget Hollywood prequel to the 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.

``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.''

— AP

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A Bollywood twist to Jane Austen

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