Chadha’s film depicts the daily life of the Bakshis (Bennets), who are a traditional middle-class Indian family. In the opening scene Lalita is helping her father take care of the farming process on their land. At the same time there are interwoven cuts that show Mr Balraj (Mr Bingley), his sister Kiran Balraj (Caroline Bingley) and Darcy landing in Amritsar, in the Punjab region. Immediately, we are given a very clear representation of the characters. Mr Balraj is ecstatic to be back in his motherland. Darcy is almost repulsed by the simplicity and chaotic elements of the place. Kiran/Caroline, more accustomed to western values, mocks both; her character’s attitude appears both in the novel and throughout the film: “I was never more annoyed! The insipidity and yet the noise; the nothingness and yet the self-importance of all these people!” We then return to the Bakshi household where the mother wants her daughters to get ready for a party. Through the dialogue we learn that Mrs Bakshi is only interested in finding suitable rich husbands for her daughters, mimicking in this way the renowned opening line of the novel: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in a want of a wife.” In its treatment of arranged marriage and other social issues, Bollywood, just as Hollywood, mostly constructs escapist narratives, and draws them in a relatively lighter way. It is not until quite recently that Bollywood has started to break down social barriers and address properly taboo issues such as mental health, addressed for example in Dear Zindagi by Gauri Shinde. Although some dislike Bride and Prejudice for being too flamboyant and part of a different tradition, others appreciate it for the way it mixes cultures and ideals to recreate original concerns. For the latter category of critics the most important characteristic is that, as Oliete-Aldea argues, Bride and Prejudice is a hybrid film that ‘deal[s] with transnational issues in terms of production, setting and thematic content.’ Chadha essentially recreates the conflict of classes and prejudices by joining Western and Eastern traditions together in the film. Ashini Fernando Creative Writing and English Literature BA, ‘Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice’, From Page to Performance
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The Cass Session