I could not take my eyes off of Bride and Prejudice. For every second I was wholly enthralled, much of the time on the edge of my seat leaning forward. And yet I can not in good conscience give the film anything higher than a four.

Bride and Prejudice is a mess – a colorful, beautiful mess – but a mess nonetheless. The film’s utter whack-job on Austen’s text is exemplified by an opening line where Lalita (Aishwarya Rai) says, “All mothers think that any guy with big bucks must be shopping for a wife.” This line, first of all, has the exact opposite effect of Austen’s opening line, which picks fun of the obsession with marriage that many girls of the time had. The film likewise, is anything but Austenian in its eschewing of all complexity, wit and subtlety.

Secondly, the line reflects a slightly more Indian perspective, that one buys his wife. The whole film is an Indian adaptation of Austen’s novel that takes place largely in India and is filmed in a Bollywood style. It’s all so campy, so flamboyant, however, that I was unsure whether the film was supposed to be a homage or a send-up; I just don’t know enough about Bollywood to be sure.

A generous portion of the film is a Bollywood style musical. The cast break into song and dance at random moments, and Lalita even has a strange dream, a nightmare – in the form of a stylized musical – about having to marry Darcy (Martin Henderson.) The bright, flying colors amidst the dancing through the streets sometimes led me to wonder if I were watching a live-action version of Aladdin. It is simultaneously fully engaging and utterly abhorrent. I watched in shock and anticipation, continually eager to see what would repulse me next.

I understand that this is the way some people felt about Moulin Rouge! But that was different. Moulin Rouge! gets it right. Bride and Prejudice is among the many such musicals that realize they have failed to avoid being stupid and so stick their tongue out at us so as to tell us that they know what they’re doing and that it’s supposed to be this way. It doesn’t work. It just ends up being stupid. This is a musical that I can only imagine 12-15 year old girls genuinely enjoying.

The lip-synching during the songs, by the way, is far worse than in Phantom of the Opera, which was heavily criticized for it.

The film’s dialogue is just atrocious. Most of the time, it sounds like it’s been taken from something like “Saved by the Bell.” In fact, so do the characters. The film rushes through conflicts in order to get through the structure of the novel, and leaves us constantly confused as to the characters’ motivations. In an early scene, for example, we already know that Darcy is going to say something to come off as arrogant and that Lalita is going to be offended. What we get is some weak comments from Darcy about how the hotel he’s staying in isn’t that great when, in fact, it is the nicest hotel in the town. After this and a few other mild comments about not thinking that highly of India, Lalita goes away extraordinarily offended and refuses to talk to him until things are inevitably ironed out later on. It was very difficult to sympathize with her. In fact, it was hard to associate with any of these characters – which is unfortunate, because one of Austen’s greatest attributes are her astutely realistic characters. The fact that this film even tries to be an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is an insult to Jane Austen.