"A colourful collision of cultures and attitudes, Bride and Prejudice is an energetically vibrant reworking of Jane Austen’s story about love and marriage." Urban Cinefile Critics URBAN CINEFILE "It just knocks you out visually. The colors are intense, reminiscent of the Glorious three strip Technicolor, circa '35-'55. All singing, all dancing, all fun!" Tony Medley TONYMEDLEY.COM "Bride & Prejudice has a goofy exuberance that's incredibly disarming." Timothy Knight REEL.COM "It's joyous, and the colorful cacophony of phoniness becomes it." Terry Lawson DETROIT FREE PRESS "A delightful patchwork quilt musical blending elements of Bollywood and Jane Austen." Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat SPIRITUALITY AND HEALTH

"Delights in setting itself up as a target for cultural purists but triumphs with its devil-may-care, good-humored fun." Derek Elley VARIETY "A free-spirited adaptation of the Jane Austen novel." Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES "Adorable, joyful and sweet." E! ONLINE "One of those rare films that I never wanted to be over -- I sat through the end credits out of a sheer inability to let the film slip away from me." MaryAnn Johanson, FLICK FILOSOPHER "Purists who think Austen will be spinning in her grave will be wrong. She'll be dancing." Peter Travers ROLLING STONE

The Inside Story

"Go see this on the big screen to fully appreciate the vibrant colors and music." ... Richard Roeper EBERT & ROEPER

"One day I was standing in my kitchen, washing dishes when I thought, let’s take something so British, so English, a great English literary classic like "Pride and Prejudice" and adapt it into a Bollywood setting." And that, says acclaimed Director Gurinda Chadha, was the start of what has turned out to be yet another another eye catching, heart warming film. It appears that, when it comes to combining cultures[East meets West], those hybrid Bollywood style films are proving highly popular, and "Bride And Predujice is set to add more converts to this wonderful, colorful, wildly riotous style of entertainment that just keeps popping up on our cinema screens. When director, producer Gurinder Chadha says "Bride and Prejudice is about the musicals that I grew up with as a child. The Bollywood movies as well as classics like the Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, the Wizard of Oz and Grease. They have all come together in a flamboyant spectacle of emotion, colour, song and dance. You can find a bit of everything in here", well, you'd better believe it. But first this important warning. If you're amongst the many westerners have experienced traditional Indian films in the past and were taken in by the hype of 'Bollywood' do not make the mistake of dismissing "Bride And Prejudice" as just another Indian production. Films such as "Bend It Like Beckham", "Anita & Me", "What's Cooking?" and "Monsoon Wedding" are in a genre of their own. These films are, like "Bride And Prejudice", a combination of cultures design for great appeal to westerners. Gurinder knew that having the right vehicle for the film was imperative, especially in light of the huge success and acclaim for her film "Bend It Like Beckham", noting that when it came to making "a Bollywood film for audiences that liked Beckham around the world, Australia, America, Europe, here in Britain and in Asia," she would "need to find a really good story, something familiar so that people wouldn’t get freaked out by all the Bollywood stuff." Cleverly, Gurinder and fellow scriptwriter Paul Mayeda Berges have combined the three cultures, Indian, British and American very well. Which begs the question, how hard was it working with three styles of acting? "We had American based actors who worked the Hollywood way [School of Acting: What’s my motivation in this scene?], The British actors, trained in Britain and versed in film, theatre and television there [School of Acting: Just hit your mark and say your lines], and the Bollywood actors with their very over the top, physical and gesture orientated style [School of Acting: Big is best and make love to the camera at all times]," Gurinder explained. So how do you go about working on a film which involves three cultures? Working on films such as "Bend It Like Beckham" and "Bhaji on the Beach" has taught Gurinder much when it comes to production. "Working in three different languages and three different cultural spaces," Gurinda said. "The only solution was to employ three separate crews. Wherever you go, you have to work the way they work in those countries. So, when we were in England we worked like a British crew and when we were in India we worked as much like an Indian crew as we could and then, when we were in America, we worked a kind of American way." Sounds like hard work to me. More like exhausting says the director who recalls, "As a director my energy was being dissipated in lots of different directions." Having never read Jane Austen's "Pride And Prejudice" I was interested to know how such a classic could convert into "Bride And Prejudice". "The themes are so pertinent to contemporary India, especially a place like rural Amritsar, where I decided the Bakshi family should live. Austen’s focus on money and marriage, false pride and false nobility are alive and well in modern India," according to the director. And those arranged marriages? "Jane Austen was preoccupied with the horrendous idea that women were not worthy of anything, unless they were married, or unless they had money," says Gurinder. "Intelligence didn’t count for anything. And in Indian society, all most Indian parents dream is to have their daughters married off respectively." This aspect of the film is highlighted through Mrs Bakshi and her four unmarried daughters. While the themes were obviously there, Gurinder definately wasn't interested in doing a purely 'Indian' film. "I’d been wanting to make a British-style Bollywood film for quite a while," she said. "I had attempted to make one in 1996 but I was working with an Indian producer who wanted to make quite an Indian one whereas I was more interested in doing something more British, so in the end that project fell apart." Gurinder was firm about her vision for making "Bride And Prejudice noting, she "didn’t want to just make it Indian, I wanted it to be international because I wasn’t interested in making a film just in India. I wanted to update the Bollywood genre with my own vision and the way I see the world, which is much more international than nationalistic. Hopefully in focusing on the whole Indian diaspora element and by making Mr Darcy American it also highlights the debate about first world/third world and him being Eurocentric." And there is another very important factor in Gurinder's films. "Basically all my films are about racism and prejudice. They might be dressed up as comedy but everything I’ve ever done is always about making whoever’s watching it think differently about the person on the screen. That’s not to say that they’re all big anti-racist statements, they’re just about humanising people who are different and showing you people in a different light and showing you people that you thought were different to you but actually were very similar to you. That’s what drives my work, it’s the engine behind everything and the reason why it moves. I use humour a lot because humour is a great equaliser. Everyone laughs at the same things if you set them up properly, and that makes everybody equal. At the end of the day, I see my job as being there to entertain as well as inform and provoke." Crew Bytes "BRIDE AND PREJUDICE" was .......
directed by Gurinder Chadha ["Bhaji on the Beach", "A Nice Arrangement", "What's Cooking?" and "Bend It Like Beckham"]; screenplay by Gurinder Chadha ["Bhaji on the Beach", "A Nice Arrangement", "What's Cooking?" and "Bend It Like Beckham"] Paul Mayeda Berges ["What’s Cooking?" and "v"]; casting by Susie Figgis ["The Full Monty", "Sleepy Hollow", "The Good Thief" and "Touching the Void"]; production design by Nick Ellis ["Bend it Like Beckham", "Mrs Meitlemeihr" and "Killing Joe"]; edited by Justin Krish ["Bend it Like Beckham", "Green Fingers", "Beautiful People" and "Silent Scream"]; director of photograhpy Santosh Sivan ["Meenaxi: Tale of 3 Cities", "Asoka", "Theeviravadhi" and "The Terrorist"]; original music by Craig Pruess ["Bend it Like Beckham", "Bhaji on the Beach", "What's Cooking?" and "Golden Eye"] produced by Gurinder Chadha ["What Do You Call an Indian Woman Who's Funny", "What's Cooking?", "Bend it Like Beckham" and "Bride & Prejudice"] and Deepak Nayar ["Heat and Dust", "Delivering Milo", "Buena Vista Social Club" and "Bend it Like Beckham"]. Casting About "BRIDE AND PREJUDICE" stars .......
Aishwarya Rai ["Mamagaru", "Josh", "Don't Say a Word" and "Raincoat"]; Martin Henderson ["Windtalkers", "The Ring", "Skagerrak" and "Torque"]; Daniel Gillies ["No One Can Hear You", "Various Positions", "Spider-Man 2" and "Trespassing"]; Anupam Kher ["Refugee", "Love Stories", "Bend It Like Beckham" and "Banana Brothers"] Naveen Andrews ["Wild West", "Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love", "Bombay Boys" and "The Chippendales Murder"]; Marsha Mason ["The Goodbye Girl", "Heartbreak Ridge", "I Love Trouble" and "2 Days in the Valley"]; Alexis Bledel ["Rushmore", "Tuck Everlasting", "DysEnchanted" and TV"S "Gilmore Girls"]; Namrata Shirodkar ["Pukar", "Tera Mera Saath Rahen", "Maseeha" and "Insaaf: The Justice"]; Indira Varma ["Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love", "Clancy's Kitchen", "Sixth Happiness" and "Mad Dogs"]; Nadira Babbar ["Meenaxi: Tale of 3 Cities"]; Ashanti ["Coach Carter"]; Peeya Rai Chowdhary ["Bhoot", "Darna Mana Hai", "Chupke Se" and "Vaastu Shastra"] and Nitin Chandra Ganatra ["Truly Madly Deeply", "Secrets & Lies", "The Love Doctor", "Inferno" and "Pure"] as Mr Kholi. What It's All About

"Gurinder Chadha transplants the traditional tale of manners to India, infusing the tired story with dance numbers, orange marigolds, and Bollywood star, Aishwarya Rai." Marcy Dermansky ABOUT.COM

Mrs Bakshi knows full well the meaning of an old Indian saying "No life without wife", so why is it then, that she still has her four very attractive daughters living at home. After all, look at how happy Mr Bakshi is after all these years. Then an opportunity arises. Amongst the guests at a local wedding eligle batchelor Balraj Bingley catches the eye of her daughter Jaya. Balraj's best friend International Hotelier Will Darcy is also attracted to another of Mrs Bakshi's daughters, the beautiful, intelligent Lalita. While Balraj is full of confidence, Will is a little confident. When Balraj invites Jaya to join him, his sister Kiran and Darcy on a holiday in Ghoa Mrs Bakshi is delighted. Except Lalita, who must chaperon her older sister. While Jaya is having a wonderful time, Lalita is discovering that Darcy is a little naive when it comes to the needs of the locals and their culture. They clash continually and she is soon convinced he is a pompous foreigner. Then Lalita meets Johnny Wickham. He knows the Darcy family too well. What he reveals to Lalita convinces her that Will Darcy is a nasty piece of goods. But love, sometimes has a strange way of bringing people together as Lalita will slowly find out. The Verdict "If you loved "Bend It Like Beckham" [and who didn't?], were taken in by the colour and excitement of "Monsoon Wedding" and feasted on the delights of "What’s Cooking", then don't wait a minute longer. Get into your local cinema and see the latest 'Bollywood' style production, "Bride and Prejudice". A riot of colour, songs, laughter and romance, Gurinder Chadha's latest film, "Bride and Prejudice" is another hybrid winner that audiences are sure to love. When East meets West, anything can happen. And it does in "Bride and Prejudice"! Recommended." The Cast

Aishwarya Rai Martin Henderson Daniel Gillies Naveen Andrews Marsha Mason Alexis Bledel Namrata Shirodkar Indira Varma Nadira Babbar Anupam Kher Anu Malik Ashanti Meghna Kothari Peeya Rai Chowdhary Nitin Chandra Ganatra Sonali Kulkarni Ray Donn Bobby Jagdev

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Lalita Bakshi Will Darcy Johnny Wickham Balraj Bingley Mrs Catherine Darcy Georgie Darcy Jaya Bakshi Kiran Bingley Mrs Bakshi Mr Bakshi Pandit Herself Maya Bakshi Lakhi 'Lucky' Bakshi Mr Kholi Chanda Limo Driver Bhangra Dancer

The Crew Directed by Gurinder Chadha Based on the Jane Austen novel "Pride and Prejudice" Written by Paul Mayeda Berges and Gurinder Chadha Produced by Gurinder Chadha and Deepak Nayar Original Music by Anu Malik and Craig Pruess Cinematography by Santosh Sivan Film Editing by Justin Krish Casting by Susie Figgis Production Design by Nick Ellis Art Direction by Nitish Roy and Mark Scruton Set Decoration by Julie Signy Costume Design by Eduardo Castro/Ralph Holes/Savinder Kmahil Makeup Designer Pat Hay Production Supervised by Susan Dretzka and Nigel Marchant Run Time 111 minutes Rated PG [AUST] Copyright ©2005 - Miramax Films - All Rights Reserved Copyright Protected © 2005 - Impact Internet Services - All Rights Reserved