much b/w archival footage to create a gripping documentary effect although this is basically a work of fiction based, however, very solidly on historical events and persons. Jinna, the secular founder of Pakistan, Nehru the secular leader of India, and Mahatma Gandhi, who was totally opposed to Partition, are all portrayed in many scenes agonizing over the impending division of the country along religious lines which will inevitably uproot millions and cost millions of lives in what was a tragedy comparable in scale to that of WWII in Europe -- the other great tragedy of the XXth century.Numerous Indian films have addressed various aspects of the traumatic Partition but this is the first entirely in English to look at the events mainly from the British perspective.. Viceroy's House is an extremely powerful historical docu-drama made in the classical style that should go a long way toward educating the outside world on the roots of a deadly dangerous conflict that continues to simmer today, seven decades later -- between two nuclear armed giants.A triumph for Indian- English filmmaker Gurinder Chandha, 57, who is herself the granddaughter of a woman who barely survived the insanity of this near double genocide and eventually emigrated to England. The central character of Lord Mountbatten is played by veteran English actor Hugh Bonneville last seen here in Berlin in "Monuments Men" , and Madame Edwina, wife of Mountbatten by Gillian Anderson. Bollywood star Huma Qureshi Gangs of Wasseypur and Dev Patel The harassed quiz show winner in Slumdog Millionaire appear in key Indian roles. This was also the last screen appearance of the great Indian character actor Om Puri of the memorable bulbous nose, who appeared in over 100 Indian films and died in January at the age of 66. British-Indian director Gurinder, Chadha, of Punjabi-Sikh origin via Kenya, came to international recognition with the feminist football soccer comedy "Bend it like Beckham" in 2002 but Viceroy's House will be remembered as her Magnum Opus -- truly monumental in every respect.

of the film are more important to me than the nuances of dialogue or the accuracy of that dialogue that took place seventy years ago. It is easy to understand why some commentators object so strenuously to unhistoric or inaccurate dialogue but to me, "close enough is good enough."It is a wonderful historical epic about a little-known facet of history so please attempt to see it before it is buried by the nay-sayers.

were far exceeded. one of the features of her films is always love. She has the ability to convey the emotion of utterly horrible things without doing the cliché showing and perpetuating violence.The highlights for me. the portrayal of the involvement and point of view of his wife, unexpectedly well played by Gillian Anderson not that I don't like her, I just couldn't imagine her in this role. The portrayal of the viewpoint shared by the staff - which is of course the point of view of the Indians so roughly treated by the raj and how she puts us in their position so we really see it from their eyes, I felt like I was peeping through doors with them. The history was told clearly and unflinchingly without the violence being centre stage - that's been done and done again. Gurinder showed us the effect on people. All this was made almost palatable and certainly accessible by the device of the young lovers, cruelly torn apart by the partition.Why 9 points and not ten? well despite illustrating that there was skulduggery afoot amongst the government I do think Dicky was painted a little too upright, straightforward and honest and I just don't believe that. However, I do not profess to know the history so well and may be wrong.

sisters. the other storyline makes clear that LOVE can be something very special, especially when you live in between millions of countrymen and there's all kind of wars going on.The director points it out very clearly!!Good for her, because this could have ruined the movie, but it somehow didn't. GO!!

version of events. The story is very 21st century in it's political correctness. Blame for the problems between the Hindus and Muslims is laid squarely on British policy of divide and rule. Racist staff are dismissed and the British ruling class are slapped spat upon and chastised for their role in events. Shockingly the partition is revealed to be Churchill's idea in order to follow some cold war anti Soviet agenda.There is one casting mistake. Hugh Bonneville is very wrong physically for the role of Louis Mountbatten. He is too plump and doesn't look like Mountbatten who was thin and lean. Gillian Anderson on the other hand is very suited to the role. She looks like her and acts superbly. It's quite a big role showing her enlightened and compassionate nature trying to help in what way she could.Worth a watch.

rather than a single absolute truth.The Second World War had left Britain almost bankrupt and her military might severely depleted. In 1947, after three centuries of colonial rule, Britain had no option but to 'grant' India independence. Lord and Lady Mountbatten played by Hugh Bonneville and Gillian Anderson had arrived into a political mess with the impossible task of peacefully withdrawing from India. There was widespread sectarian violence between Hindu, Muslim and Sikh populations, demands for independence were at fever-pitch, and a full-scale civil war was looming. Britain was ill-equipped to maintain peace or to protect its strategic assets, particularly against Russian expansionism. The British government's political solution was to partition India, thereby creating the nation of Pakistan for its minority Muslim population, leaving the re-shaped Indian continent for its Hindu and Sikh people. The proclamation of independence and the partition precipitated the largest humanitarian crisis the world has seen: over a million died in the ensuing violence as fifteen million displaced refugees re- aligned their national loyalties with their religion.Depicted as being at the epicentre of this historic political turmoil, the Viceroy's House is also the cinematic frame for exploring the chaotic tragedy at human level. Woven into the bigger narrative is a love story between Hindu manservant Jeet Manish Dayal and Muslim handmaiden Aalia Huma Qureshi . When the partition is announced, they are torn apart as she must move to the new Pakistan. The 500 servants in the palatial Mountbatten household spend most of the film squabbling in a microcosm of what is happening across the country. Each must choose which side of the partition they belong. Throughout the chaos, the Mountbattens are portrayed as benevolent but helpless instruments of historical and political forces.A film that compresses a monumental story into one and three quarter hours will inevitably be both selective and reductive. As cinema, this is an outstanding work. The filming is sumptuous, the sets magnificently authentic, the acting is excellent, and the narrative unfolds with epic grandeur. For those who know little about the last Raj the film will fill many gaps. But as history, it is inevitably selective. Most glaring is the benign portrait of a compassionate departing colonial power. This glosses over the preceding centuries of exploitation and Britain's duplicitous political posturing that resulted in tearing apart the Indian nation in the dying days of the Empire. Aside from that caveat, this is a superb production.

within that great House. Upstairs lived Mountbatten together with his wife Lady Edwina Mountbatten American actress Gillian Anderson - US TV Series The X-Files, Johnny English Reborn and daughter Lady Pamela Hicks Lily Travers - Kingsman: The Secret Service, Me Before You ; downstairs lived their 500 Hindu, Muslim and Sikh servants. As the political elite - Nehru, Jinnah and Gandhi - converged on the House to wrangle over the birth of independent India, conflict erupted. A decision was taken to divide the country and create a new Muslim homeland: Pakistan. It was a decision whose consequences reverberate to this day. The film is deeply personal to the director Gurinder Chadha, whose own family was caught up in the tragic events that unfolded as British rule came to an end. Her film examines those events through the prism of a marriage - that of Dickie and Edwina Mountbatten - and a romance - that between a young Hindu servant, Jeet Kumar American actor to Indian parents Manish Dayal - The Hundred- Foot Journey, The Domino Effect , and his intended Muslim bride, Aalia Noor Indian actress Huma Qureshi - Gangs Of Wasseypur, Badlapur . The young lovers find themselves caught up in the seismic end of Empire, in conflict with the Mountbattens and with their own communities, but never ever giving up hope… Amongst the other actors / actresses in Viceroy's House include Republic Of Ireland actor Michael Gambon The King's Speech, Layer Cake as General Hastings Ismay, Scottish actor David Hayman Scottish Comedy TV Series Still Game, UK TV Series Trial & Retribution as an important British figure based in India whose name I can't remember sorry, late Indian actor Om Puri Ghandi, East Is East as Ali Rahim Noor, English actor Simon Callow The Phantom Of The Opera 2004, Amadeus as Cyril Radcliffe, English actor Simon Williams UK TV Series Upstairs, Downstairs and Agony as Archie Wavell, Oman actress Sarah-Jane Dias Angry Indian Goddesses, Zubaan as Sameera, English actor Samrat Chakrabarti Walkaway, The Waiting City as Mohsin, Indian actor Darshan Jariwala Million Dollar Arm, Love Exchange as Guptaji, English actress Lucy Fleming Pirate Radio, UK TV Series Survivors as Lady Wavell, English actress Roberta Taylor UK TV Series EastEnders and The Bill as Miss Reading, Terence Harvey Basic Instinct 2, From Hell as Sir Fred Burrows, Arunoday Singh Sikandar, Mohenjo Daro as Asif, Indian actor Neeraj Kabi Talvar, Gandhi Of The Month as the famous iconic figure Mahatma Gandhi, Denzil Smith The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel as Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Jaz Deol UK TV Series The Halcyon and Code Of A Killer as Duleep, English actor Robin Soans The Queen, Blue Juice as Governor Jenkins, Tanveer Ghani UK TV Series The Royals, Amar Akbar & Tony as Jawaharlal Nehru, Marcus Jean Pirae Bulletproof Monk, Stripped Down as Alan Campbell Johnson and Noah Zeiler as Henry Grady. Pretty much all of Viceroy's House is filmed on location in India along with some screen shots of London the capital of England. Overall Viceroy's House is a good drama film filled with drama, chaos, carnage, love, passion, loyalty, togetherness, hardship, harsh reality way of life, traditions of Indian life, big crowds of people, people dressed up in smart suits like Lord Mountbatten, chefs, arguments, disagreements, falling outs, agreements, tongue and cheek stuff, political figures, the will to do the right thing, family, friendship, markets, trains, cars, army vehicles, some tough hard hitting scenes that are hard to watch at times and many other things throughout the film. So I will give Viceroy's House an overall rating of 3 out of 5 stars and I will say Viceroy's House is worth seeing if you like drama films based on true stories like Lion, Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, Hidden Figures, Denial, Tracks, The King's Speech, Jackie, Frost/Nixon amongst others along the same lines. So if you get the chance to see Viceroy's House in the cinema then you should go and see it sooner than later.

didn't have the resources to hold on to India anymore, and everyone involved knew it. This meant that the factions within India were no longer scared to make demands.This is a strong and important story, one, which is rarely told, or taught here in the UK, and it really should be. We need to understand our mistakes, so we're less likely to repeat them again in the future. We also need to understand what we did right, and learn from those decisions as well.There are a number of good, solid performances here. Hugh Bonneville plays Lord Mountbatten without fault. He comes across as charming, and typical of the fighting aristocracy of the time. He cared about his legacy. He cared about doing what was right. Most importantly, he cared about India, her people, and its long-term future.Michael Gambon plays General Ismay, an archetypal, political pragmatist. He doesn't care about India. He isn't really interested in her people. He only cares about Britain, and its future.We also have an ongoing love story between Jeet Kumar, played by Manish Dayal, who's a former policeman and a Hindu, and Aalia Noor, played by Huma Qureshi, who works at the Viceroy's House and is a Muslim.The love story is used to help the viewer understand the deeply entrenched division between the religions at the time although let's be honest they haven't improved much since . The film doesn't really mention the Indian cast system, but in real life that didn't help the situation either. It also gives a story, set at the highest levels of government, a more human feel.A special mention needs to go to Gillian Anderson. Her performance as Lady Mountbatten is wonderful. Many will be shocked that Anderson actually has an English accent, but she has spent a large amount of her life this side of the pond. However, her accent here was a real surprise. The received pronunciation was perfect. It was as if she were the Queens little sister. Her character adds heart, she adds a moral core, to both Lord Mountbatten, and in my eyes, to the film in general. I was impressed to say the least how beautifully she slipped into the role.I would also like to mention the fact that Gillian Anderson appears to be getting better looking with each passing year. It's as though she stole Dorian Gray's picture, and had it repainted with her own portrait. If she carries on this way, by the time she's 80 her beauty will be so unbelievable, it may very well start a new religion.Not only is she becoming more beautiful, but her acting ability seems to improving with everything performance. It's getting to the point where I will watch anything she's in, just to see her. I'm just hoping someone gives her the roles she deserves to show that she can be this generations Meryl Streep, or Katherine Hepburn. I genuinely think she is capable of hitting those heights.All in all, this is a well-cast, well-acted, well-written film with beautiful production values. Visually it's stunning. The buildings used, the props, the costumes, everything looks wonderful. There are some cleaver uses of photo-video cuts. It also uses historical footage nicely.This has to be Gurinder Chadha's biggest film since Bend it like Beckham, and if this is the level that she's working at now, then I'm really looking forward to her next project.If you're a fan of historical drama, or just good old fashioned colonial history, then give this film a chance. It may open your eyes to some history to weren't taught at school, and you'll also be able to enjoy a rather charming film.