Provoked: A True Story
Wednesday, 04 Apr 2007 13:50
Stars Aishwarya Rai and Miranda Richardson in Provoked
Directed by Jag Mundhra, out in cinemas April 6th, starring Aishwarya Rai, Naveen Andrews, Miranda Richardson and Robbie Coltrane, running time 113 minutes.
In a nutshell
Well-meaning, emotive, clichéd, mawkish, amateurish.
What's it all about?
Beginning with the violent conclusion of their marriage, Provoked is based on the true story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia (Rai) and her Punjabi husband Deepak (Andrews). On May 9th 1989, after a decade of domestic abuse at his hands, Kiranjit finally cracks, setting her husband on fire as he sleeps. The film charts Deepak's death, Kiranjit's incarceration and subsequent fight for freedom.
Once imprisoned, Kiranjit's case comes to the attention of a group called the Southall Black Sisters, who appeal against her minimum twelve-year sentence. As luck would have it, she ends up sharing a cell with Veronica Scott, sister-in-law to none other than Lord Edward Foster. He takes her case before the high court in 1992, eventually bringing about not only Kiranjit's freedom, but also redefining what it is to be provoked in the eyes of the law.
Who's in it?
Bride and Prejudice star Aishwarya Rai who plays Ahluwalia is making serious waves in Hollywood. However, on this showing it is hard to see why. Her performance here is an uneasy alliance of shocked, pained and please-pity-me-looks, laced with an irritating sanctimony.
Lost star Andrews would have done well to have remained so for this one note performance. To signify the onset of Deepak's nastiness, Andrews stiffens the face and narrows the eyes. Evil abounds - woeful.
The presence of Robbie Coltrane as Lord Foster provides a measure of abatement to this dismal spectacle. Just a pity he has so little screen time.
As an example.
Ahluwalia: "I left my husband's jail and entered a jail of the law and it is here I found a kind of freedom."
Scott: "You know that's almost profound."
Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars
On paper it ticks all the right boxes for an invite to Hollywood's annual pageant. It is a true story of triumph over adversity; gritty but drenched in sentimentality; rousing court-room scenes; happy ending.
However, you imagine the only Oscar space this will be filling, will be the ceremony's dead-of-night British timeslot.
What the others say
"The film clearly belongs to Aishwarya. She gets a grip on her character Kiranjit's predicament with a fluid grace, her large swimming-pool eyes brimming over with untold grief as she pleads with her lawyers, 'Please let me see my children,'" India FM.
"Provoked answers the complicated question of domestic disharmony with a deft and direct approach to the question of a woman's place in the man's scheme of things," Seattle Indian.
So is it any good?
Solid writing, acting and a certain amount of directorial panache; these are the bare minimum needed by any true story wishing to defeat the suspense killing foregone conclusion that comes with the genre. Unfortunately, Provoked has none of these elements.
Mundhra and his writing team seem to work off the notion that an audience can never be trusted to work anything out for themselves. Meaning we have a movie filled with desperately contrived scenes and conversations, teeming with clichés and a plethora of epiphany moments, thus reducing Ahluwalia's genuinely harrowing true tale to an implausible series of weak plot devices.
However, it did contain several so bad, it's good moments. Especially the inmate scenes, which brought back memories of Prisoner Cell Block H. Best of all though, is EastEnder's Steve McFadden doing a hilarious Phil Mitchell-inspired turn as hardline policeman.
2/10
Patrick McFadden
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