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Bride fails to bend it
Aishwarya Rai, Namrata Shirodhkar in `Bride and Prejudice.'
Bride and Prejudice (English)
Cast: Aishwarya Rai, Martin Henderson
Director: Gurinder Chadha
AISHWARYA RAI never stops being Aishwarya Rai. It doesn't matter who she is supposed to be - she will always be Aishwarya Rai playing whichever character.
So here she is playing Lalita Bakshi, a feisty girl, who lives with her three sisters, mum and dad in Amritsar, never even in one frame giving up her diva personality and trying to give us a sense of a real person.
A lot was expected of Gurinder Chadha after Bend it like Beckham but Bride and Prejudice is as charmless as Bend it... was heart-warming. While we wept and laughed with Jess and Jules we feel totally disconnected from this frenetic, frantic movie.
Overcooked fare
The whole "Bollywood musical" thing is overdone and comes apart like overcooked aloo gobi. There is too much of nudge, nudge, wink, wink, this is how the natives entertain themselves, which is rather indigestible like stale aloo gobi. Apologies for repeatedly homing in on the aloo gobi metaphor - but it was so much part of Beckham's charm.
An Indian retelling of Jane Austen classic, Pride and Prejudice, Bride and Prejudice is full of exchanged glances meetings, falling apart and weddings and sangeet and everything but Chadha seems out of her element and the movie just lacks in heart.
Deadpan duo
Chadha is neither helped by the expressionless leads - the beauteous Ms. Rai and the incredibly stone-faced Martin Henderson who drag the already plodding film down like a couple of wooden albatross.
On the plus side are Namrata Shirodhkar as Jaya and Naveen Andrews as the besotted Balraj. Anupam Kher seems totally overwhelmed as the father while Nadeera Babbar tries too hard which can be said about the whole movie - it tries too hard to be winsome, boisterous, colourful, romantic and ends up - you got it - like last week's aloo gobi!
By Mini Anthikad-Chhibber
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