ADFF 2011 Review: Trishna

Michael Winterbottom is a director that’s known to never stick to a single genre and keep experimenting with the films he makes. His last film ‘Killer Inside Me’ was an extremely violent and highly controversial and divisive crime noir that didn’t sit all too well with many audiences, but now the director is back on track with a film set firmly in India. And ‘Trishna’ is a simple but engaging film that manages to do a lot of things right.

Told as a modern adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ set in contemporary Indian, the story follows the simple young girl Trishna who lives with her family working at a farm back in Rajhistan. When a NRI tourist comes to her and takes a liking for her, he invites her to come and work with him at his father’s hotel. From there begins Trishna’s journey and a romantic relationship that takes a strange turn as it goes on.

After the success of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, there have been quite a few attempts at foreign directors coming and shooting a movie in India. But somehow, the movies always end up feeling like a foreigner’s point of view of the country or city instead of an organic Indian film. And this is where ‘Trishna’ impresses the most – it looks and feels just like an Indian movie should. Right from the dialogue, filming style, the way the story progresses right down to the locales and minute details, it looks like the work of an Indian-born filmmaker instead of a UK filmmaker which it really is. There’s a calm quality to the narrative that’s reminiscent of the independent Bollywood movies set in villages, and all these add to the movie’s feel to a great extent.

As for the storyline, it’s simple but never lets itself drag. From the get-go, we meet Trishna and are instantly attached to her ways of the world. There’s no meandering around and an incident happens soon enough and the plot kicks into motion. As a viewer, we are thrust into her world and experience the things she experiences and the events are never uninteresting or repetitive. There’s no grand twists (except one, but I’ll come to that later) for the most part which leads to a very easy-going storyline that is still engaging to watch.

As he enter the final act of the film though, things take a turn for the dark and that’s where the film’s only flaw lies. As the events of the film begin to take a tragic turn, a particular character decision comes out of left field that unfortunately doesn’t feel organic. Now it is a novel adaptation and I’ve heard that this action happens there as well, but here the events before it don’t naturally lead to the conclusion that the film decides to take and in turn looks forced and unnecessary. A better set-up leading to the event which feels out of place from the tone of the rest of the film would have been a better choice, but it’s not a big of a flaw that mars the entire film.

Freida Pinto is back once again in her home territory and gives the best performance of her career by far, proving that she has genuine chops for acting if she’s given the right role. She carries the film all the way through with the right emotional prowess and her grasp of her character is strong enough to take the audience along for the ride. It’s refreshing to see her speak raw Hindi and carry a de-glamorised look after having seen her glossed up in a few Hollywood movies that she did recently. The rest of the cast is adequate, but Pinto is clearly the shining star here.

‘Trishna’ is a strong film that feels real to its roots despite being adapted from an English novel. The final act takes a few wrong turns, but Pinto’s excellent performance and the filmmaker’s strong grasp of the country makes it a successful effort.

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