Marriage and Mobility Gone Global in Bride and Prejudice Anonymous College

Although critics describe Bride and Prejudice as “a Bollywood-style version of Jane Austen’s novel” (Brockes, 2004), the film is much more than Pride and Prejudice “transplanted…to India” (Gritten, 2004). If the adaptation was simply a transplant then surely it would have been filmed in Hindi and set entirely in India? Instead, Bride and Prejudice is filmed in English with a diverse cast that “shot on three continents” (Brockes, 2004). It becomes apparent – particularly given Chadha’s admission of being attracted to “Pride and Prejudice [because it] is a universal love story” (Gritten, 2004) – that this film is “targeted at a global audience” (Wagner, 103). Although the film “did badly in the English version and even worse in the Hindi version” (Trivedi, 207) it still makes some important points. Specifically, this essay will focus on the way film globalises Austen’s theme of mobility. The OED’s definition of mobility as “the ability to move or to be moved; capacity for movement or change of place” is ideal since it encompasses the range of mobility in Bride and Prejudice.

As a film-adaptation, Bride and Prejudice met with mixed success. Bride and Prejudice not only “failed at the Indian box office” (Berghahn, 178) but also...