'Bride and Prejudice' out of tune

Every so often, a film will come about which manages to transcend national boundaries and wonderfully mix seemingly incompatible cultures. "Bride and Prejudice" is not that film.Though director Gurinder Chadha of "Bend It Like Beckham" fame attempts to blend English, American and Indian life and art in "Bride," the film loses itself among disappointing performances and awkward jokes. In the end, "Bride" is like one of those chocolate Easter bunnies: sweet on the outside, but disappointingly hollow on the inside.

The film's plot is fairly faithful to its source, Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." Like Austen's work, the film harkens back to a simpler time when men would tend to business and women would worry about marriage. The Bennets have been replaced by the Bakshis in "Bride," complete with a mother (Nadira Babbar) obsessed with marrying off her daughters and a father (Anupam Kher) who never takes her seriously. There are only four Bakshi daughters in "Bride": the flirtatious Lakhi (Peeya Rai Chowdhary), the self-overrated Maya (Meghna Kothari), the eldest, Jaya (Namrata Shirodkar) and the witty, beautiful heroine Lalita (Aishwarya Rai).

Enter a rather easygoing hotel magnate Will Darcy (Martin Henderson) visiting from America with his Indian-English friend and business partner Balraj Bingley (Naveen Andrews) and the classic story follows. While Balraj and Jaya seem entranced by each other at the first of many dances, Will tangles with Lalita and, thanks to his American ethnocentrism, manages to offend Lalita's sensibility and cultural pride.

Soon a blubbering distant relative of the Bakshis, Mr. Kohli (Nitin Chandra Ganatra) and the wicked Mr. Johnny Wickham (Daniel Gillies) arrive from L.A. and London respectively to compete with Will for Lalita's affection. Screenwriter Paul Mayeda Berges, who also wrote "Bend it Like Beckham," deserves some kudos for creating what would appear on to be an effective translation of "Pride and Prejudice" into Chadha's East-meets-West theme. But ultimately, it's an all-too-obvious cry for cultural relativism.

The adaptation is marred by unconvincing and one-dimensional portrayals. The leads have surprisingly little chemistry and even less depth, perhaps because their scenes together are either too short or too crowded with other characters. The early disagreements between Lalita and Will seem forced, as if each were reciting lines from an episode of Crossfire. Thankfully, Nadira Babbar's Mrs. Bakshi picks up the other actors' slack with her naturally overanxious complaints and endearingly clueless disposition on marriage. She manages to steal every scene, and rightfully so.

The pervasive, energetic mood of the characters is fun at first, but eventually ruins many potentially dramatic moments. The film's possible saving graces are its songs, but they are entirely hit or miss. The large-scale, upbeat, over-the-top, Bollywood-style pieces are a nice relief from American musicals which focus more on individual singers, but lip-synching is painfully obvious and far too often the songs seem to be inserted without advancement of the characters or plot.

The final verdict: For Bollywood fans and Austen enthusiasts only; its romance is tepid, its infrequent comedy falls flat. For those who are still interested, it is currently playing at the Garden Theatre — hopefully to be replaced soon by a truly worthwhile film.