This is part of a series of No Shame Movie Reviews. For reasons I won’t speculate and rant about now, we have been told that only some movies are worth enjoying. Only artsy movies with a meaningful and/or ambiguous message, perhaps. To that, I say phooey. I say that you should be able to watch and enjoy any movie you want – from low-budget children’s movies to dramas about the hopelessly romantic. If you enjoy them, then why the heck should you not be able to watch them without shame?
So remember last week, when I rambled a lot about how much I love Pride and Prejudice? Yeah, that’s still not over. This week, Jane Austen went Bollywood, with the musical adaptation Bride & Prejudice.
Bride & Prejudice is very true to the original (unlike last week’s Bridget Jones’s Diary). Obviously there are differences—it’s set in modern India, for one—but plot-wise? Practically identical. As I love the book so much, I really appreciated that. Don’t get me wrong, versions that are a bit looser with the source material are still great, but it’s hard to beat Miss Austen herself. Bride & Prejudice makes all the necessary changes, but doesn’t just go mess with something also so wonderful.
It took the familiar story of Pride & Prejudice and imbued it with a whole new energy. There were saris and musical numbers and an elephant. There was everything I expected—Messrs. Darcy and Wickham and Bingley (well, Balraj for that last one), weddings, romance, misunderstands, pride, prejudice—but it was all slightly different, it was all twisted just a bit to fit into this framework of Indian culture.
And as someone who admittedly has next to no experience with Indian culture (aside from Cheetah Girls 3, of course), I found it absolutely fascinating. I kept finding myself asking: How is this different from how the story would be told in Jane Austen’s England, in today’s America or England? Those are the versions we’re always told. Bride & Prejudice is not that version. It was tweaked to deal with different prejudices and stereotypes and expectations, according to Indian culture. It hits all the major plot points, as I mentioned earlier, but how it moves between them is all Indian.
In all honesty, I should probably say now that I’ve never seen a Bollywood movie before this one—and this one probably doesn’t really count. So I didn’t really know what I was signing up for. I found the musical numbers a bit awkward and the lack of kissing disappointing (come on, no kissing?!). But in the end, it was Jane Austen, just with a twist. That’s pretty hard to mess up, in my book at least.
And there we have it. Just a few of the reasons that you should not be ashamed to watch and enjoy Bridge & Prejudice. If you have any ideas for a movie that you want me to review, then leave me know! Bad, fun, silly, adorable, enjoyable, romantic, anything that you shouldn’t be ashamed to watch and love! (Bonus cookies if it’s also on Netflix.)
Image Credit: Netflix, Wikipedia, Fanpop