Thighbeca Film Festival ‘012

Trishna
Rorschach Tess
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 117 min

There’s a famous book that you may have heard of called Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.  We don’t know a thing about it, cept that it’s probably about a girl named Tess and she’s of d’Ubervilles.  Man, remembering how to spell ‘d’Urbervilles’ is about as hard as remembering how to spell ‘hors d’oeuvres’!  And did you know that the lady of the d’Ubervilles has no relation whatsoever to the lady of Cat Stevens song ‘Lady d’Arbanville’???

Now that that’s settled, one of a kind/wunderkind director Michael Winterbottom has taken the Tess text, whatever it is, and renamed her Trishna of no family name, and moved her story to India.  Since we don’t know the source material, it’s hard to compare how they compare, but this movie is kinda the bomb-bay… well, for a Winterbottom movie that is.  Rule of thumb/numb – if Michael Winterbottom has directed a movie, it’s probably worth seeing.  Trishna is no exception, and probably one of the more exceptional movies he’s done did.  It’s true!

Trishna is Freida Pinto, a peasant girl who works for peanuts to provide for her family.  One day, her traditional dancing  catches the eye of Richie Rich Riz Ahmed (he was in Wintery’s Road to Guantanamo) and he plucks her from poverty to work at one of his father(Roshan Seth, he of the Temple of Doom!)’s hotels.  Since he’s a man, of course he has ulterior motives, like getting into her pants.  She’s shy, and he’s nice, but guards are eventually lowered and so are pants.  Then Trish leaves, returns home, takes care of some unwanted bidness, and the Richie Rich guy goes chasing after her.  They decide to live together in the big city, where him being rich and her being poor isn’t a big deal, and everything goes really darn swell (smiles! more dancing! the life of luxury!), until things change and aren’t going well, and then things GET FREAKING CRAZY!!!!  This flick’s got love, hate, secrets, lies, thighs, Pinto, no beans, beautiful scenery, Indian stuff, some happiness, much sadness AND MUCH MORE!

moral of the story – oh, Trish, of the d’Oeuvres, why do fools fall in love, especially with rich fools who seem to be nice but really are juss controlling iceholes??!?!??!?!  TRAGIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  we totally now want to read the book watch one of them stuffy British TV mini-series adaptations!!!

Verdictgo: Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers

Trishna opens in theaters May 18

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…