Film Review: "Trishna"

Hi everyone!

Just watched British director Michael Winterbottom's new film "Trishna." It is his third film adaptation of a Thomas Hardy novel, one of my favorite authors of all time. His previous two are "Jude"which starred Kate Winslet and was based on Hardy's classic "Jude the Obscure" and "The Claim," an adaptation of "The Mayor of Casterbridge" set during the American gold rush.  "Trishna" is loosely based on Hardy's "Tess of the d'Ubervilles" and transposes the story to modern-day India.  As can be expected of any filmed version of Thomas Hardy, the story is bleak and offers little in the way of uplift or redemption for its characters.

"Trishna" tells the story of a poor young Indian woman (played by a fetching Freida Pinto, best known as the co-star of the Oscar-winning "Slumdog Millionaire") whose life is dramatically altered when her father, the family's sole breadwinner, is gravely injured in an automobile accident. As fate would have it, Trishna has recently met Jay (an understated performance by Riz Ahmed, an acclaimed British-Pakistani actor and rapper) whose father owns a string of luxury hotels across India. Jay takes pity on Trishna and hires her to work at one of his father's hotels in Jaipur.

It would seem however that Jay has an ulterior motive. He is struck by Trishna's beauty and innocence and, one evening, he seduces her. Overcome by shame, Trishna returns to her family's village but her fallen status proves too much for her father so he sends her away again. Jay soon finds Trishna and persuades her to join him as his live-in girlfriend in his rented flat in Mumbai. All seems to go swimmingly for Trishna in Mumbai. She is accepted by Jay's Bollywood-aspiring friends (one of whom is played by Bollywood director Anurag Kashyap) who nurture her talent for dancing. But...Trishna has a rather big secret and the moment she confesses this secret to Jay things start to go tragically, though inevitably--this is Thomas Hardy after all--downhill.

"Trishna" is a beautifully made film: gorgeously shot and indelibly acted by two extremely talented emerging actors. Winterbottom does an effective job of portraying two contrasting Indian societies (rural and urban) represented here by Ms. Pinto and Mr. Ahmed. You can't help but be affected by the terrible/naive decisions Trishna makes because you know early on that things can only end badly, and when Trishna finally takes matters into her own hands, the violence is sudden and shocking.

If I have one criticism, it would be that the characters are fairly one-dimensional. You know, this being a Michael Winterbottom film of a Thomas Hardy novel, that Trishna and Jay are meant to be symbols of opposing classes of society. Trishna is meant to represent everything that is wholesome and pure about the underclass while Jay symbolizes lazy Westernized old money, a society that lives well and loosely off of inherited wealth. It's all a bit predictable but compelling nonetheless.

As I said at the top of this review, Thomas Hardy is one of my very favorite late-Victorian novelists. Despite its exotic setting and modern update, in "Trishna," I am pleased to say that the spirit of Hardy survives and thrives.

"Trishna" is currently playing in limited theatrical release as well as on Comcast Xfinity On Demand. Check it out.