Viceroy's house (2017)

	Also Known As: Der Stern von Indien
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Gurinder Chadha
	Actors: Gillian Anderson, Hugh Bonneville, Manish Dayal, Huma Qureshi, Simon Callow, Lily Travers
	Country: GB, S
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 31.07.2017, Schauburg, OV Sneak Preview, English version with German subtitles
Synopsis: New Dehli in March 1947. The huge and stately Viceroy's Palace is like a beehive. Its five hundred employees are busy preparing the coming of Lord Louis Mountbatten (Bonneville), who has just been appointed new (and last) viceroy of India by prime minister Clement Attlee (Callow). Mountbatten, whose difficult task consists in overseeing the transition of British India to independence, arrives at the Palace, accompanied by his Edwina (Anderson), his liberal-minded wife and by his eighteen-year-old daughter Pamela (Travers). Meanwhile, in the staff quarters, a love story is born between Jeet (Daval), a Hindu, and Aalia (Qureshi), a Muslim beauty. Things will prove difficult - not to say very difficult - both on the geopolitical and personal level.
Review: The story starts in an interesting way as if we would experience two stories. But in fact we only see the story of the heroic viceroy who is able to handle with all parties and is betrayed by his own colleagues. The love story of Aalia and Jeet is fully secondary. The story of the good wife pushing diplomatic and progressive agreements between the British crown and India is as secondary as the daughter Pamela helping poor Indians after getting the finest lunch.At the end it looks like the Viceroy has been fooled by a bunch of Indian and British traitors. How naive is the viewer supposed to be? At least some key points of the Indian history are correctly rendered that may not be so commonly known. The split of India and Pakistan, its rationale, its colonial and economical context. The acting of the British characters is very stuck while the Indian characters are all passionate and dramatic. What kind of stereotypes are we supposed to swallow?  The light in any circumstance, bright Sun outside and dark appartment, is well mastered.  I suppose that the intention of the movie was not to pull down Indians, but for sure to excuse the Viceroy and the British crown. Who would believ this tale? Not me.
Rating: 3 /10