What irks me about Bride and Prejudice...

I managed to watch Pride and Prejudice (the Keira Knightley starrer) two weeks back thanks to Sarathy who rented the movie from Blockbuster. I had been nagging him for quite sometime to rent the movie. I remember having read the novel "Pride and Prejudice". I liked it so much and later went on to read Sense and Sensibility and Emma. I love Jane Austen's works. A few years back I had watched the old version of Pride and Prejudice movie (English) on some english channel. Then Doordarshan made a serial called Trishna which was an exact adaptation of the novel and I watched that too...Later I bought an unabridged version of the book and added that to my books collection...

Last year my friends and I decided to watch Bride and Prejudice starring Aishwarya Rai and Martin Hendersen. I was not too keen on watching the flick as I was not a fan of Aishwarya's acting abilities or histrionics. The dame is beautiful but she cant simply ACT ! God knows how I managed to sit through the whole movie. All of us came out of the theatre with a headache.

I was feeling so bad that Gurindher Chadhdha after directing a lovely movie like 'Bend it like Beckham' could make something rubbish like this...thank goodness we watched the english version...friends who went to watch the hindi version "Balle Balle, Amritsar to LA" just sneaked out of the theatre in 30 mins fed up with the hindi utterances and the heroine's screen mother's gimmicks...

Well, well, this post is about the characterisation of that lady. Oh my goodness, what a contrast between the latest english version and Bride and Prejudice. Mrs Bennett (that's the name of Elizabeth Bennett's mom) characterisation is that of a mother who is anxious to get her daughters married.

Infact one of the conversations in the movie is like this:-

Elizabeth: Ma, can't you not think of anything else except getting us married?

Mrs Bennett: What do you expect an old lady with five young unwedded daughters in the house to think of if not getting them married?

Hmm...

Unfortunately the Punjabi Lady in Bride and Prejudice (Lalitha's mom)is shown to be onboxiously loud mouthed and almost sounds like a pimp :( The way she talks about getting prospective suitors for her daughters sounds more like a bargain. One more thing, the english version has the gals voicing their opinions to their mother especially when the lady says something ridiculous. Bride and Prejudice shows the gals meek and super submissive and dancing to their mother's tunes...

I think Chadhdha needs to do serious thinking about projecting India and Indians. Well, I dont wanna sound like patriotic here but I feel that if she wants to showcase India and the Indian Culture, let it have a positive feel...Watching Bride and Prejudice made me feel YUCK and I began to wonder whether there were really mothers like that around...:( Sigh !!!