By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Aakash Dahiya | Freida Pinto | Harish Khanna | Neet Mohan | Riz Ahmed | Roshan Seth
Country: united_kingdom
Year: 2012
Running time: 117
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1836987/
Bruce says: “Michael Winterbottom (WONDERLAND, THE TRIP, 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, THE ROAD TO GUANTANAMO, IN THIS WORLD, WELCOME TO SARAJEVO, TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY) is one of the most versatile directors in the history of film. TRISHA, based on Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, is the third of Hardy’s novels Winterbottom has brought to the screen. His 1996 JUDE is a bleak, disturbing take on Hardy’s Jude the Obscure. Winterbottom moved The Mayor of Casterbridge to the Wild West in THE CLAIM, featuring an intriguing cast that includes Peter Mullan, Nastassja Kinski, Sarah Polley, Shirley Henderson, Julian Richings and Wes Bentley. This time around Winterbottom has moved the setting of Hardy’s novel from the bucolic nineteenth century English countryside to current day India, ablaze with color and teeming with people. Tess is the story of a woman punished by a society which chooses to ignore the many ways in which women are abused and mistreated by men, in Trishna’s case her father, lover, and husband. Their behavior is a product of tradition, authority, and moral code. Her story could not be updated without a change in location.
“When her father falls asleep at the wheel and totals his truck, the family’s livelihood is threatened. He is severely injured and his taxi and livery business is destroyed. Jay (Riz Ahmed), son of a wealthy luxury hotel owner offers to provide employment for Trishna (Fried Pinto) at a sum which will allow her to be the family breadwinner. His motives are strictly ulterior and soon he beds Trishna. Lovestruck but afraid and confused, she flees only to discover she is pregnant. Her father dispatches Trishna to Bombay to visit her uncle who puts her to work in his factory. Jay, who has given up running his father’s hotel, tracks Trishna down and rescues her. Soon they are living together in Bombay. But Jay ultimately abandons Trishna by going away for business and never returning home. Trishna is evicted and she moves in with friends. Jay reappears in the nick of time and rescues her gallantly on a dark street just as she is threatened by a group of men looking for some action. Returning to the hotel business Jay employs Trishna once again. They do not speak in public but passion flourishes behind closed doors when Trishna delivers Jays’s meals to his private quarters. Trishna’s tales of good fortune do not fool anyone at home in the countryside. Her father, now recovered and sporting a brand new Jeep says, ‘Everyone knows I’m living off you.’ Class boundaries and gender
disparity dictate a tragic ending.
“TRISHNA has a different but equally tragic ending than the novel. The character of Jay is a compilation of two characters in the novel. Nonetheless, the mood of the novel prevails with Hardy’s familiar theme of social injustice intact.
“Freida Pinto (SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, MIRAL) is perfectly cast as Trishna. Riz Ahmed, who appeared in Winterbottom’s ROAD TO GUANTANAMO, performs well and his matinee idol looks should land him plenty of roles in the future. Ahmed has a dual career; he is a well-known rap artist, performing as Riz MC. Trishna’s family in the film is, in real life, an actual village family in India. The use of music, both contemporary and traditional, adds additional flavor to the complexities of contemporary India whose dirt and grime intermingle with modernity. 4.5 cats
“(TRISHNA screened at the 2012 Provincetown International Film Festival.)”