Bride & Prejudice: Jane Austen’s Pride in Amritsar, London, Los Angeles

The 2004-released update faithfully depicts efforts by:

• Lalita’s father (Anupam Kher) to get his daughters settled happily in a National Heritage Development and Augmentation Yojana City big enough for the Sikh-holy Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) but little enough for communitywide celebrations;
• Lalita’s mother (Nadira Babbar) to have the quartet wedded prosperously in Punjab state district administrative headquarters large enough for the Hindu-holy Durga Tirath (Durgiana Temple) but small enough for super-hotel computer crashes and power failures.

It emphasizes Lalita’s compassion in:

• facilitating sister Jaya’s (Namrata Shirodkar) romance with Mr. Balraj (Naveen Andrews);
• monitoring sister Lakhi’s (Peeya Rai Chowdhary) boy-craziness; 
• tolerating sister Maya’s (Meghna Kothari) cobra-mimicking dances.

It simultaneously fine-tunes the naïveté that genteel poverty’s limited socialization imposes. 

The storyline gets told in the super-entrancing, super-vibrant Bollywood styles through:

• conversations;
• costumes;
• dances;
• music;
• songs.

Lalita has a tendency to:

• believe Johnny Wickham (Daniel Gillies) as the child of estate servants and ex-employee of Darcy enterprises;
• disbelieve Will as the child of California businesswoman Catherine Darcy (Marsha Mason) and friend of Anne de Bourgh (Georgina Chapman);
• fault Kholi (Nitin Ganatra) as a fast-eating, loud-laughing social-climber.

Her epiphanies inspire such mesmerizing song-and-dance routines as:

• “My Lips Are Waiting” and “Touch My Body” by New York-born performer Ashanti;
• “No Life Without Wife” and “Take Me to Love” by Farhan and Zoya Akhtar, children of Madhya Pradesh-born author, lyricist, poet Javed Akhtar and Lucknow-born actress, screen-playwright, storyteller Honey Irani. 

Lalita ultimately judges as hypocritical:

• befriending Chandra Lamba (Sonali Kulkarni) but demonizing Kholi;
• condoning Manorama’s matchmaking but vilifying Kiran Balraj’s (Indira Varma) and Will’s;
• decrying Johnny’s flirtation with 16-year-old Georgina Darcy (Alexis Bledel) but underplaying his with Lakhi.  

She knows that Chaman’s paternal open-mindedness appreciates:

• Chandra’s and Kholi’s Amritsar/LA/Amritsar pre-paid tickets;
• Will’s Indian-style drumming.

She leaves everyone on-screen and off culturally enriched, educationally entertained, geo-historically enthralled with astute inputs by:

• All performers;
• Bend It Films, Bride Productions, Inside Track Films, Kintop Pictures, Miramax Films, Pathé Pictures International, UK Film council production companies;
• Paul Mayeda Berges, writing;
• Gurinder Chadha, direction/production/writing;
• Susie Figgis, casting;
• Justin Krish, editing;
• Anu Malik and Craig Pruess, music;
• Deepak Nayar, production;
• Santosh Sivan, cinematography.  

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Aishwarya Rai plays Lalita (= Elizabeth Bennett) in "Bride and Prejudice," Gurinder Chadha's film transformation of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" into a vibrant setting in India.
Bride and Prejudice was Aishwarya Rai's first English language feature film.: Amit Sharma (wave-rider), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/wave-rider/1529079383/

"Bride and Prejudice -- Take me to Love" (3:44)
Uploaded May 18, 2011, by Chrisisawseome's channel to YouTube ~ URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlMiYW6saX4

"Bride And Prejudice No Life Without Wife HD" (4:55)
Uploaded October 30, 2013, by enigma3695 to YouTube ~ URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRuUpN5DGgo

"Bride and Prejudice - Trailer" (2:17)
Uploaded July 23, 2012, by LionsgateVOD to YouTube ~ URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFYwqts1_TI

(left to right) Gurinder Chadha, Santosh Sivan, Paul Mayeda Berges
Director-Producer Gurinder Chadha co-wrote "Bride and Prejudice" with her husband, Paul Mayeda Berges; Santosh Sivan was cinematographer.
National Asian American Telecommunications Association, San Francisco, CA, 2005: Mai Le from San Francisco USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons@ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gurinder_Chadha,_Santosh_Sivan,_Paul_Mayeda_Berges_at_NAATA.jpg