| Overall Grade: |
A |
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| Story: |
A |
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| Acting: |
B- |
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| Direction: |
A |
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| Visuals: |
A+ |
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a delight for the eyes, and Austen would approve
by angelicandtrue (movies profile)
Mar 1, 2007
8
of
11 people found this review helpful
This movie does justice to the sense (and why not say sensibility) of Austen's story, written in a time where European women were socially and economically defined by marriage, the way that Indian women largely are today. Like Austen's works themselves, this piece of saffron-colored ornamentation is light and airy, not a direct social revolt.
However, do not underestimate the subversiveness of G.C.'s choice to appropriate this British classic and to adapt it to a post-colonial India, to take Austen and set her to a Bollywood score. Imagine an Arab-world cineaste taking the American classic HUCKLEBERRY FINN and setting it in modern-day Iraq. That's the implicit social commentary here, a colonization in reverse gear, and this done with winking humor and beautiful silk saris.
Gurinder gets a touch down against the ruins of the Raj and the Americanization of the world. Why don't the critics, on this site and elsewhere, understand this? I can only recall that it took Austen about a hundred fifty years to be taken seriously as an author. This Bollywood bop is serious business, too. |
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