“This is the kitchen. This is where you’ll be spending most of your time.”
What’s it all about? Michael Winterbottom adapts Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy into contemporary India, substituting the British countryside with the desert. Freida Pinto stars as Trishna, a young waitress who is seduced out of poverty by a privileged suitor named Jay (Riz Ahmed).
Jay, the film’s male lead, says to Trishna that it is advised by the Kama Sutra that men only sleep with three types of women: the maid, the single lady and the courtesan. Throughout Winterbottom’s TRISHNA, the titular character fills each role with similar unpleasant acquiescence.
Freida Pinto’s Trishna starts as “the maid”, living in poverty and supporting her family by making a small wage as a waitress for tourists in the neighbouring city. After meeting Trishna, the privileged playboy Jay offers Trishna a higher-paying position in a town almost halfway across India. The transition from England in the late nineteenth-century to modern day India is surprisingly fluid, as the power structure is still very much in place. There is no question as to who wields the power within the relationship between Trishna and Jay. Even when Trishna stops working in Jay’s hotel and becomes his permanent live-in girlfriend, Jay is still absolutely in control — and this power dynamic degenerates, becoming increasingly brutal and vulgar. Here the transition from “the single lady” to “the courtesan” occurs, and Trishna is left reeling. I was surprised by the ending, not because I haven’t read the novel — I have — but because I couldn’t believe Pinto’s meek Trishna actually had it in her to react so aggressively to her degraded existence.
The film would have benefited from a shorter run-time, as there are quite a few languid, over-run moments that are not helped by Winterbottom’s approach to the script. The dialogue throughout TRISHNA is all improvised by the actors, guided by the narrative arc provided by Winterbottom and Hardy. Because of this, therefore, there isn’t much to the script, and most of the emotional impact is derived from scenes of silence or minimal dialogue. To be frank, not a lot is said by the actors save tepid exchanges and necessary exposition. Pinto and Ahmed do their best with what little they are provided and, for that, they have my grudging respect.
Overall, TRISHNA features well-meaning performances yet is overall a wearying adaptation, but one that is remarkable for its depiction of its Indian locales, Jaipur and Mumbai.
Notes: Directed by Michael Winterbottom; Produced by Andrew Eaton, Phil Hunt, Compton Ross, Shail Shah, Melissa Parmenter, Michael Winterbottom; Starring Freida Pinto, Riz Ahmed; Written by Michael Winterbottom; Cinematography by Marcel Zyskind; Edited by Mags Arnold; Sound by Will Whale; Music by Shigeru Umebayashi.
