This film is based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, but filtered through Bollywood cum Hollywood. This is really a Bollywood musical made for audiences in the UK and the US, and it really works. Especially with Bollywood lovely Aishwarya Rai in the lead role (I first saw her in the amazing Mohabbatein and then more recently in Devdas ) . At 111 min this has to be the shortest Bollywood film ever made, but it isn’t bothersome, and this film seems just about the right length. A really fun and enjoyable film all the way around, with trips to India, London and Los Angeles. Chadha has made a great follow up to Bend it like Beckham.

Will Darcy (Martin Henderson) a rich hotel owner (or at least his mother does) comes to India with his best friend Balraj Bingley (Naveen Andrews) and his sister Kiran Bingley (Indira Varma). Balraj is in India looking for a wife, and falls for Jaya Bakshi (Namrata Shirodkar) whose family has 4 daughters and a mother who is desperate to marry them off. Will immediately falls for sister Lalita Bakshi (Aishwarya Rai), but she spurns him, being prejudiced against this rich American who wants to purchase a 5 star hotel in India. Will and Balraj take Kaya and Lalita to the hotel Will is thinking about buying, but Lalita meets Mr. Wickham (Daniel Gillies), who is the son of Will’s nanny, and had a falling out with him in the past. Will and Balraj end up leaving for England early, but Balraj promisses to contact Jaya, though he doesn’t. And Wickham leaves Lalita, and instead of contacting her, contacts her younger sister Lucky (Peeya Rai Chowdhary). An indian man from the states comes and tries to woo Lalita, but is unsuccessful, so he goes to marry her best friend, and sends 4 tickets to India. They decide to go, but stop in England to see Balraj on the way, but don’t see him, though Lucky does manage to see Wickham. Will is on the plane from England, and gives up his first class seat to the mother so he can sit next to Lalita. In LA, she begins to get convinced that she was wrong about him, but then at her best friends wedding his mother introduces his girlfriend, and his sister tells her that he convinced Balraj not to marry her sister. She is furious. He follows her to England, where Lucky has run away with Wickham, and he tells her that Wickham had gotten his sister pregnant at 16 and tried to marry her to get the family fortune, he finds her and fights Wickham. Then it is back to India for Jaya’s wedding to Balraj, and Will and Lalita end up married as well.

This really is a Bollywood musical made for American audiences, and it works, and I hope it does very well, and opens up people’s eyes to Bollywood Cinema as a whole. This was a lovely and fun film