As Good As It Gets

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Viceroy's House sketches through the convoluted history of India's Independence, and the partition between India and Pakistan, but does it in a beautiful, touching way. It's a very complicated story, and Chadha uses key people to coax out the human factor from a single, physical location. Don't let the simple approach fool you; it teases out the much bigger stories by focusing on the personal. And it is personal. Do watch through the end, because Chadha proves how personal it is with a coda that ties the story to actual people. Hopefully, you'll walk away with wanting to learn more about this particular part of history. Or you will walk away feeling a part of your own history has been shared that is often overlooked in western cinema.

While the movie dealt with the disaster that was the handover of India to it's people and the carnage of partition, the story centered its attention on the ridiculously palatial British Viceroy's House, the farcical pomposity of the British who conducted their business there and the countless number of Indian servants whose behavior and attitudes which reflected those of the Indian population at large.As Churchill said, "History is written by the victors," and thus British colonialism in general, and people such as the Mountbattens in particular, have long been blindly glorified and exculpated. At least this movie helps to expose Mountbatten as the fatuous tool of the politicians that he was, chosen for his gullibility and his obsession with inflating his reputation. His wife and daughter come across as being the sympathetic, but clueless ego-centric do-gooders that they were.The rush to hand over India, as one servant in the movie aptly stated, was because the British didn't want to be accountable for the inevitable carnage. As we were informed at the end of the film, countless millions were displaced and one million died, with the blame conveniently shifted onto independent India. This moment in Indian history, the obvious focus of the movie, and the resultant blood shed, as horrific as it was, would pale in comparison with an honest assessment of the death, destruction, enslavement and exploitation visited on India during the previous centuries of British rule. Shashi Tharoor recently claimed that Britain was responsible for the deaths of 35 million Indians. The accuracy of his numerical claim is irrelevant, but it does provide a contextual comparison.The family of the film's director, Gurinder Chadha, suffered from the partition debacle and from the irresponsible colonial rulers. Possibly the time has come for history to be portrayed by its victims, rather than the supposed victors. Gurinder Chadha has been accused of bias in her film's portrayal of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Indian Muslims.

The film is beautifully acted and a good sub-plot revolving around staff in the viceroy's house. However, the central conceit of the movie is complete rubbish (plot spoiler averted)...The film, unwittingly or deliberately, robs the Indians and Pakistanis of any agency in their own fate when, in fact, I-Congress and Jinnah made nearly all the running on what happened at partition. The potential for terrible violence between the two main religious communities was always present in India and not a cunning ruse by the imperial government or the Mughals before them. Less painful to blame third parties...Anyway, the history aside this is a very well put together movie. It would have got 9 stars if it had not played so fast and loose with the truth, which matters if we are to deal with the hurts of the world.

Once again we can see the brightness of the British Empire, the Pomp and Circumstance. Essentially anglophile where the simple and human behavior of the upper social classes towards people (supposedly) of inferior class or of different culture or religion is a trait something difficult to find and therefore very appreciated when it is produced. The movies shows the last moments of the transfer of sovereignty to India, the process of the creation of Pakistan as a nation and the collateral victims of political intrigue represented here by the viceroy and his wife (officially designated to carry out the whole task) and that despite the efforts of both of them they turn out to be simply marionettes of the British government. To alleviate the great political content of the plot, we also have an insubstantial love story between a couple of lovers of different religion that possibly was not needed; and finally the conclusion that whatever happens in History England always wins.