t is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

  Thus opens Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, her 1813
novel that has been translated to a film a number of times over. The theme of the work is marriage, specifically, a mother's machinations to try and get her five daughters married off to men of appropriate social status and wealth.

  Now we have the Bollywood version, Bride and Prejudice. For those who need a quick primer, Bollywood is the name of the popular Mumbai-based film industry in India. The word Bollywood was created by blending Bombay (the city now officially called Mumbai) and Hollywood.

  Few Bollywood films are made without at least one song-and-dance number, and there's usually a boy meets-girl story, some derring-do and formulaic, melodramatic subplots 
actors
Aishwarya Rai 
Martin Henderson 
Anupam Kher 
Daniel Gillies 

director
Gurinda Chadha 

location
India, London, America

outtake  
Bride and Prejudice 
debuted at the 
top of the British 
box office.

that featuring political corruption, duplicitous villains and fortuitious encounters-all culminating in a happy ending.

  However, Bollywood is changing to accommodate a younger, more urban and educated audience. Thus, we have films such as Bride and Prejudice.

  From the same director (Gurinder Chadha) and production team that created the wonderful Bend It Like Beckham, we get a twist on the Austen classic of ardent courtship and requited and unrequited love-Bollywood style. There's music and dancing to the tune of marriage-age daughters battling it out with the opposite sex and their mother at the same time. The setting bounces around the world from present-day India to London and America.

  "I am very proud of Bride and Prejudice," says one of its stars, Aishwarya Rai.
"Audrey Hepburn's son, Sean Hepburn Ferrer, presented me with a book on his mother. A week later, after the premiere of Bride and Prejudice, I was compared to the great actress and her demeanor by some of Britain's leading newspapers -- that's quite a coincidence."

  Like the styles this film tries to blend together, the cast is also a masala of talents that includes both Bollywood and Hollywood actors, including Martin Henderson (The Ring) and Daniel Gillies (Spider-man 2).

  However, the real star of this ensemble film is Aishwarya, who's been enormously successful in her own country. "The reality is that I've had an incredible time," she says. "The Time magazine cover; the prestigious nomination as a jury member at the Cannes Film Festival; being counted among the 100 most influential people in the world; being immortalised at Madame Tussaud's wax museum; being the global face of India... it sounds silly for me to list my achievements, but that's a fact."

  So, is Aishwarya interested in leaving Bollywood for a shot at making it in Hollywood? Not according to a Times News Network interview. "I've agreed to scripts and ideas by many filmmakers here (in India)," she said.

  So Hollywood's loss, as it turns out, is Bollywood's gain.

- Vince Everett