As Bride and Prejudice celebrates its 20th anniversary, Nadira Begum looks back on the British South Asian director’s career, whose lively films probe the intersection of race and class.
This week marks 20 years since the release of Bride and Prejudice, Gurinder Chadha’s Bollywood musical adaptation of the Jane Austen classic. When it came out, Bride and Prejudice was derided by critics for its supposed ‘parochialism’, but was appreciated by audiences who enjoyed the film’s levity in its approach to the beloved novel. In the ensuing two decades, Chadha has come to define British South Asian cinema.
Rarely deferential to Britishness, Chadha approaches identity through the lens of a first-generation immigrant, making her work all too appealing for a subsection of the country who otherwise felt underrepresented by the established canon of British cinema (usually white period dramas). In Chadha’s films, it is almost always a South Asian woman trying to find her place in relation to Western society. In Bhaji on the Beach (1993), a group of predominantly Punjabi women go on a day trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach and explore their place in contemporary Britain. In Bend It Like Beckham (2002), Jessminder ‘Jess’ Bhamra (Parminder Nagra) longs to be a British football legend. In Bride and Prejudice (2004), Elizabeth Bennet stand-in Lalita Bakshi (Aishwarya Rai) must confront her own preconceived notions of Western ideals.
Bride and Prejudice (2004)
Chadha’s vision has been clear from the outset: she is an artist determined to use her work to explore the inner lives, experiences and grievances of South Asians, and she remains fearless in her exploration of issues that are generally taboo in these communities. Sexuality, pregnancy out of wedlock and intra-community racism are all topics that Chadha was not afraid to shine a spotlight on. Bhaji on the Beach was described by American critic Roger Ebert at the time as ‘quietly charming’, and it was the success of this feature debut that allowed Chadha to explore the British South Asian experience in more depth in her later films.
Bhaji on the Beach (1993)
Often co-written with her husband Paul Mayeda Berges, Chadha’s films have been praised for offering an insight into the interiority of young (particularly South Asian) women. Widespread acclaim came with Bend It Like Beckham, a dramedy about a British Punjabi girl who pursues a career as a footballer despite her parents’ wishes. Those familiar themes of eschewing traditional values to follow one’s dreams crop up time and time again in Chadha’s work and, in Bend It, Chadha uses them to explore early 2000s British society. At a time when ideas of ‘multiculturalism’ were at the forefront of Tony Blair’s New Labour manifesto, a film about a Punjabi girl befriending a white, English tomboy (Keira Knightley’s Jules) with the shared goal of becoming the next British football sensation seemed to encapsulate everything about modern multicultural Britain. Jess’ line ‘Anyone can cook aloo gobi, but who can bend a ball like Beckham?’ feels tailormade for an audience of first- and second-generation immigrants who long for something more than the ‘traditional’ life of their parents.
Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
Though she was never formally trained in filmmaking, Chadha taught herself to be a director by watching Hollywood classics like It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and Bollywood hits including Purab Aur Pachhim (1970). She developed a penchant for blending the extravagant style of Bollywood cinema with the so-called British sensibilities of wit and restrained emotion. This combination is perfected in Bride and Prejudice, where Chadha adapted Austen’s novel into a boisterous Bollywood musical, swapping the quiet idyll of the English countryside for the hustle and bustle of Amritsar, India. That Chadha managed to secure Bollywood darling Aishwarya Rai in the lead role speaks to her cultural capital at the time – the fact that it was Rai’s choice for her first English-speaking role is even more impressive.
The film is perhaps best remembered for its musical number ‘No Life Without Wife’, a sequence that sees the Bakshi sisters mock the old-fashioned requests of an uncouth suitor in search of a housewife. It is through these musical numbers that Chadha injects Bollywood vivacity into this otherwise introspective story, using Austen’s ruminations on the Regency era to highlight the similarities between the two cultures. Bride and Prejudice interpolates the eccentricity of Bollywood musicals with the sweeping emotion of a period romance to create a wholly unique adaptation of a classic of English literature.
Bride and Prejudice (2004)
After a few anomalies – like the 2017 period drama Viceroy’s House, which was baffling in its somewhat sympathetic depiction of the last days of British Imperial rule over India – Chadha returned to her familiar playbook of using cinema to interrogate modern society. This was the impetus behind 2019’s Blinded by the Light, which indirectly tackled the political polarisation of post-Brexit Britain. Inspired by Sarfraz Manzoor’s 2007 memoir Greetings From Bury Park, and set against the backdrop of Eighties Thatcherism and the rise of the National Front, Blinded by the Light follows Javed Khan (Viveik Kalra), a young Pakistani Muslim boy who spends his time writing anti-fascist poetry in his bedroom before his life is transformed by the songs of Bruce Springsteen.
Blinded by the Light (2019)
The film was evidently a response to years of British politicians espousing anti-immigration rhetoric and sidelining the most vulnerable in Britain. Chadha saw this as an opportunity to once again mend cultural divides, forging a connection between Springsteen’s life as a working-class man from New Jersey and that of a Pakistani boy from Luton, who both use their art as a means of overcoming social barriers. Scattered throughout the film are wondrous moments of joy, like Javed and his friends blasting Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run’ over their school speakers and running through the corridors singing along as though they are the stars of their own musical. These are the scenes that have become a staple of Chadha’s films: fairy-tale moments that capture you in the emotion of her characters and carry you along with them.
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008)
For her more than three-decade filmmaking career, Chadha has come to define a specific era of British cinema. Films like Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008) became staples at teen sleepovers, and Chadha’s determination to depict the point of view of young women proved a success in British households. The quirks that make her films so appealing have remained present, from Chadha’s ability to capture the geopolitical history of a nation with just three words in Bend It Like Beckham (‘Jess, I’m Irish!’) to her scathing critique of outdated traditional values in the form of song and dance in Bride and Prejudice. And while it may be true that Chadha’s films are littered with moments of whimsy that whisk you away from reality, she never sacrifices depth for entertainment, instead always interrogating questions of race and class. Perhaps Chadha’s biggest strength is just that – her ability to mix the frivolous with the consequential. Chadha’s next feature, a Bollywood musical-inspired adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, promises to continue this tradition. Addressing the UK Parliament earlier this year, the filmmaker revealed that her take on the story would include a Scrooge who is a ‘an Indian Tory who hates refugees’ – a direct dig at then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
Whether it’s romantic comedies or touching novel adaptations, Chadha’s films transcend cultural boundaries to bridge the divisions of race and class. If she is praised for nothing else, then let it be for her steadfast focus on the experience of South Asians in the UK. Though Chadha is not revered in the same way as her peers, she has become a household name for many British cinemagoers and an icon for British South Asians. Her dedication to showcasing the grievances felt by immigrant communities in the UK, captured through the lens of an immigrant, sets her work apart from the rest, and in an industry that is still so dominated by the white middle class, Chadha is a welcome presence.
