Chichester Cinema at New Park
Trishna
Tess of the d'Urbervilles transposed to modern day India by Michael Winterbottom with Freida Pinto as the tragic heroine.
In Trishna, a lively re-imagining of Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Michael Winterbottom's third Hardy adaptation (after Jude and The Claim) is an inventive updating, retaining the tragic heart of the story but inflecting it with a very modern sensibility.
The setting is present day India, and Trishna (Freida Pinto) is the daughter of an auto rickshaw driver. She meets Jay (Riz Ahmed), the son of a wealthy property developer, who has come to work for his father in a beautiful heritage hotel in Rajasthan.
When Trishna's own father has an accident and is unable to work, Jay offers her a job in the hotel so she can support her family. The two fall in love, but this is Hardy, so we know that tragedy will likely follow.
Pinto and Ahmed are both attractive and engaging to watch, and there is joyfulness as their growing affection for each other takes hold. When they exchange rural Rajasthan for the delights of Mumbai, we see the modern, cosmopolitan city where Jay's friends are trying to make a living from film, music and dancing - a massive contrast to Trishna's life so far, and possibly a challenge to some of our preconceptions about India. What's not so progressive, however, is the sexual double-standard that was the undoing of the original Tess, and proves no less devastating for Trishna.
UK · 2011 · Michael Winterbottom · 117min
