Updating a work of classic literature into a modern setting has proven a tricky endeavor. The '90s have seen mottled incarnations of everything from a gun-wielding \Hamlet"" to Alicia's Silverstone's version of Emma in ""Clueless.""
These exploratory attempts to update timeless stories with the sensibilities of pop cinema usually fall flat, or at least garner mixed praise.
""Bride and Prejudice,"" Gurinder Chadha's lively but sloppily generic follow-up to 2002's inexplicable hit ""Bend it Like Beckham,"" seeks to renovate Jane Austen's ""Pride and Prejudice"" with elements of broad Hollywood romantic comedy and Bollywood extravagance but the result is eye-catching yet stiflingly, tediously lame.
Chadha bases the film loosely on Austen's novel, preserving some of its central themes and characters hazily-the Bakshis intend to marry their daughters off ambitiously, with the mother (Nadira Babbar) especially valuing finances over true feelings.
The key players are American hotel tycoon William Darcy (Martin Henderson) and second-oldest Bakshi daughter Lalita (Aishwarya Rai), who must overcome the unconvincing disgust and culture clash phase of their relationship before dancing off together into the sunset.
Rounding out the male presence in the Bakshi family is Darcy's lawyer pal Balraj (Naveen Andrews), a supposedly hunky Londoner and adversary to Darcy (Daniel Gillies) and a farcically inappropriate but loaded suitor (Nitin Chandra Ganatra).
Over the course of two hours, these principle characters melodramatically act, sing and strut their way through a typical Velveeta-laden marriage of east-west romantic shenanigans that feels as blandly processed as ""American Idol.""
While one must hesitate and consider the traditional conventions of the genre, the performers in ""Bride and Prejudice"" appear almost possessed in their joyfulness, lending it a simultaneous sense of phoniness and creepiness. Henderson is an android dream boat who blends into the scenery and Rai, who despite, her inarguably radiant beauty, never met an overblown display of emotion she did not like.
Chadha messily stages scenes with a requisite oomph but traverses the old beaten path, albeit multicultural, with tiresome romantic clich??s resurrected but not invigorated.
""Bride"" retreads ""Pride and Prejudice,"" complete with an independent, vivacious heroine at odds with the prospect of arranged marriage, ""wacky"" slapstick, generally obvious humor, standard issue ignorant, anti-cultural caricature villains and dashing romantic adversaries.
The only stab at originality is bizarre: Wickham suddenly materializes into a borderline sexual predator, fixing his oily charm on Lalita's jailbait sister before fist fighting with Darcy. Although this jarring development is handled with the same blandness apparent in the rest of the film, it is a puzzling climax for such a piece of inconsequential fluff.
Inevitably, the kind of girls who own ""Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights"" will embrace Chadha's latest the most, while most guys forced to accompany said girls will grimace their way through it. ""Bride and Prejudice"" will surely not be the monster crossover hit its makers expect.
No matter what its influences or intentions are, ""Bride and Prejudice"" is a slapdash chick flick, rife with photogenic yet humdrum stars, all dressed up with nowhere to go.
It fails because it lacks purpose and skill and emerges as a hopelessly hackneyed product of focus group studies and commercial aspirations. Homogenized and saccharine, it is one of the most aggressively kitschy chick flicks this side of ""Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood."" Whether you find this delightful or closer to the fifth circle of hell will probably depend upon your chromosomes.
