Bride and Prejudice (2004)

Although it made less than a fifth as much at the U.S. box office, Gurinder Chadha's follow-up to Bend It Like Beckham is a lot truer to the joyous Bollywood traditions that lurk in the background of her international soccer hit. Bride and Prejudice, Chadha's Indian take on the Jane Austen novel, also benefits from what should have been a crossover breakthrough for Aishwarya Rai -- voted the world's most beautiful woman by a consensus of 2005 Internet polls -- but didn't turn out to be the same career-making boost that Keira Knightley got from Beckham. Bride is quite literally light on its feet, as it serves up numerous breathtaking Indian song-and-dance numbers, deliriously choreographed in a rainbow of colors. The weaker Broadway-influenced numbers are more abrupt, but they still contribute to Chadha's commendable balance between intimate character development and large-scale production design. Chadha also tones down the "talkative ethnic mother humor" that undermined Beckham, lending a greater respect and believability to the Bakshi family, whose elders are torn between landing rich husbands for their daughters (the mother) and letting them follow their bliss (the father). Rai does an excellent job fashioning a modern feminist role model who refuses to play her ascribed cultural role, yet still shows exceptional fondness for her roots. Opposite her as Darcy, Martin Henderson deserves kudos for the soft-spoken dignity that gradually redeems his initial tactlessness. Chadha's chaste approach to the material -- the characters never even kiss -- prevents certain scenes from reaching full catharsis. And a fistfight that takes place in a movie theater, echoing the fisticuffs taking place onscreen, is pretty clichéd. But these are minor grievances in an otherwise unqualified success. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide