Provoked DVD > Reviews > It Almost Provoked Me to Leave

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Hated it
Story	Very weak
Characters / Performances	Weak
Special Effects	Weak
How does it compare to similar films?	Weak

Advantages:	It draws attention to a serious topic .
Disadvantages:	The dreadful direction, acting and writing .

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

After ten years of mental, physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her husband, Kiranjit Ahluwalia finally snaps. She douses him in petrol and sets fire to him as he sleeps. But despite her history of spousal abuse, she is sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. Because there was a gap of two hours between the last beating doled out by her husband and her desperate act against him, the law refuses to accept that she was provoked. So she is left to rot in prison, unable to come to terms with what she did until a charity for abused women takes up her cause and determines to push for an appeal.

From the amateurish direction of this movie, I expected director Jag Mundhra to be a first-timer. But he’s been making films for a fair few years. Presumably he’s used to working with virtually no budget or crew if the dreadful production values are anything to go by. It’s as if he’s done one take of each shot to save on precious film. The film stock is muddy, the shots are often poorly framed and out of focus. The whole kit and caboodle feels like a made-for-TV drama that you’d usually find tucked into the afternoon slot on Channel 5. And that isn’t just because most of the cast seem to have been culled from various soap operas. The standard of the action sequences is terrible – you can tell blows aren’t really landing and that the burning Deepak is really a stuntman dressed up and doused in fire retardant. The burns make-up is dreadful, there are too many modern haircuts (the film is set in 1989) and the younger actresses are plastered in make-up that is unsuitable for people playing prison warders and junior doctors. The way the story is told feels very old-fashioned; the passage of time is shown by on-screen date stamps that appear with a typing sound effect. Much of it is told in flashback – we start in the aftermath and shuttle through the narrative in a series of clumsily edited segues (items of clothing elicit particular memories and all are prefaced by Rai gazing wistfully into the middle distance).

But the main problem with the movie is its lack of emotional heft. Mundhra prefers cheap sentiment over emotional depth. His handling of the domestic violence is so melodramatic you may find yourself tempted to laugh when you should be gasping with shock. It feels like a human Punch and Judy show. Rai’s constant weeping and wailing smacks of mawkishness. And when it comes to being sent down, the protagonist’s transition is too easy. After a single run-in with an enormous white wannabe rude-girl, she’s taken in by her cellmate and friends, who show her the ropes and teach her English, acceptance and how to stand up for herself. Hence lots of prison montages that make doing bird look fun. Then when her plight attracts media attention, she gains respect from everyone in a dreadfully trite scene where prisoners and warders alike cluster around the TV and applaud her. I get the impression from all the performances that the director was standing behind the camera telling everyone to make it bigger. This would certainly explain the cartoonish characterisation that plagues the film throughout and the extremely melodramatic acting.

The screenplay by Carl Austin and Rahila Gupta feels like it’s been put together from various tabloid news stories of the period. There’s very little detail; it feels like a very clichéd portrait of spousal abuse regardless of its “based-on-a-true-story” credentials. You don’t get to know the characters on an emotional level. Kiranjit is a traditional Punjabi housewife whose sole purpose is to care for her family. There’s no suggestion of an inner life. Deepak is a two-dimensional abusive archetype, who is defined entirely by his actions and a smattering of soap opera exhortations (“Why do you keep winding me up?!). The police are all either racist and/or misogynistic and/or corrupt. Judges are unfeeling and prison guards are gormless. Activists are hippy dippy tree huggers looking for a cause and have only the most basic and personal motivations. The characters in jail are prison movie stereotypes that feel like they’ve been shipped in from “Prisoner: Cell Block H.” From the sarcastic guards to the big, butch bully they are all too clichéd to ring true. In true soap opera style everyone speaks in homilies (“I couldn’t save my sister…”) or exclamation marks (“She killed her kids!”), making it all very dull and predictable to listen to during the overly generous hundred and thirteen minute running time. There just isn’t enough insight or story to justify the length.

As you might expect from a former Miss World winner, Aishwarya Rai is known for her beauty. However, I become increasingly disappointed with every one of her acting roles. She’s very good at looking teary-eyed and staring into the middle distance, but when it actually comes to dialogue, she seems to be at something of a loss. It’s obvious from her woeful attempts at pidgin English that she has a far greater knowledge of the language than the character and her portrayal of a battered wife is stereotypical at best. You never feel like she’s really in fear for her life or that she understands the predicament of the character.

Naveen Andrews is utterly miscast as the abusive Deeapk. He can’t flip from one emotional state to another at the drop of the hat (say from happiness to rage) and he doesn’t exude the required menace. Instead he eyeballs other players and shouts a lot. You won’t believe a thing he says or does. I suspect Miranda Richardson was attracted to the subject matter rather than the script as she and the part of Ronnie (Kiran’s cellmate) are an ill fit. Her accent is all over the place and her characterisation is patchy, making this far from her best work. “Eastender” Steve McFadden plays bent copper DS Ron Meyers as Phil Mitchell with a badge. To be fair, he looks far more relaxed in front of the camera than most of the cast and the soap operatics suit his acting style. So expect his usual raspy shouting with added racism and misogyny. As activist Radha Nandita Das has the requisite fervour even if her part is one of the most predictable. At least she’s putting some effort into the role unlike Robbie Coltrane, who sleepwalks through the part of barrister Lord Edward Foster.

The original music by A R Rahman seems to be having an identity crisis, the only thing consistent about it is its ubiquity. There’s barely a moment’s peace as he switches from style to style. If it isn’t metallic percussion and samples with rising flutes, it’s attempts at thriller-style string arrangements, discordant synthesized strings, bhangra, woodwind and serious string arrangements smothered in kettle drums or schmaltzy piano motifs. There’s hardly any rhyme or reason to it and its omnipresence proves its undoing, though it has the saving grace of occasionally distracting from the dreadful acting.

“Provoked” is a film that deserves to succeed because it draws attention to a serious subject that should merit more media attention. But the paucity of direction, writing and acting is its undoing. A degree of subtlety is required when dealing with a hot topic such as domestic violence and the excessive melodrama throughout undermines the pressing message at the heart of the story. Unless you’re a massive fan of Aishwarya Rai or you want a lesson in how not to make a fact-based drama, I’d leave this film well alone.