TRISHNA (Michael Winterbottom). 117 minutes. Some subtitles. Opens Friday (July 20). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NN
Michael Winterbottom has adapted the work of Thomas Hardy before, in 1996’s straightforward Jude and 2000’s The Claim, a little-seen version of The Mayor Of Casterbridge set in the American Old West.
But transplanting Tess Of The D’Urbervilles to modern India is a bold move that doesn’t fully pay off.
Trishna (Freida Pinto) is a beautiful village girl lured by Jay (Riz Ahmed), the underachieving son of a property developer, to work for him at one of his father’s resorts in Jaipur and then become his lover. She bows to his every wish, even when they later settle in bustling Mumbai, where he ignores her and quashes her dreams of becoming a Bollywood dancer.
The lack of an Angel Clare figure – the third point in the Tess triangle – means there’s less tension in the narrative, resulting in a meandering second half and no sense of tragedy. The colourful, vibrant locations add lots of texture, as does Shigeru Umebayashi’s Indo-influenced score, which occasionally recalls his melancholy theme from In The Mood For Love.
Pinto, meanwhile, looks radiant throughout, though her frustratingly passive character makes it hard to sympathize with her suffering.
