It’s a low-key message movie, but it still packs a punch.
Comment
04/05/07
Provoked (2007)
29
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:34
Fresh:10
Rotten:24
Average Rating:4.5/10
Consensus: Provoked's story is worth telling, but the hammy dialogue and heavy-handed direction doesn't give it the refined treatment it deserves.
Theatrical Release:May 11, 2007 Limited
Synopsis: "Provoked" is the true story of a battered wife who fought back, first against her husband and then against the system. Full of optimism and affection, newlywed Kiranjit Ahluwalia (Aishwarya... [More]
Starring: Aishwarya Rai, Naveen Andrews, Miranda Richardson, Rebecca Pidgeon
Director: Jag Mundhra
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Reviews for Provoked
Unfortunately, Provoked possesses the tinny production values and schmaltzy music of a prime-time special, despite its ensemble of terrific actors.
05/17/07
Director Jag Mundhra expends so much energy and screen time to sway us to take Kiranjit's side -- really, we're on her side, we're on her side -- that he doesn't have much left over for anything else.
05/11/07
Top CriticA melodrama dressed up just enough to hold interest, in the retelling of an undeniably important story.
07/30/09
By offsetting Women in Cages-style throw-downs with Malcolm X-like uplift, it is simultaneously strange and familiar, inspiring and annoying.
05/30/07
feels largely meaningless and inconsequential
05/17/07
For viewers prepared to go with the flow, it works at a gut, movie-movie level.
04/05/07
Provoked is a feminist homily of the shrillest order.
05/08/07
Top CriticAccount of a legal campaign launched by women to expose the brutality of domestic violence and male chauvinism.
05/17/07
Soapy sermon about the landmark case of a battered wife.
05/11/07
Rai's acting is frustratingly passive in Provoked, and the script is laced with prison and courtroom clichés. But the movie gets most of the facts straight and the flashbacks to the wife's abuse are harrowing.
05/11/07
Top CriticProvoked avoids sentimentality and illustrates how one woman's bravery helped fuel a nationwide crusade and irrevocably altered British laws on domestic violence.
04/03/07
In keeping its inflammatory subject matter at arm’s length, Provoked does exactly the same to its audience.
05/14/07
Top CriticCourtroom drama about the landmark decision which established Battered Women's Syndrome as a defense, at least in England, where relief for an abused wife is now just a Molotov cocktail away.
05/09/07
[Director] Mundhra can't control the expansiveness of the melodrama or focus on the terseness of realism. Every character in Provoked, from victims to tyrants, Indian to English, loud to quiet, ends up as a grossly exaggerated comic creation.
05/18/07
For all the gushy feelings, the plight of women like Kiranjit, bound not only by domineering, often physically abusive husbands but by racism and oppressive cultural traditions as well, is poignantly portrayed.
05/11/07
Holy Burning Bed! If Britain had its own equivalent of the Lifetime channel, "Provoked" would be tailor made for it.
05/12/07
Director Jag Mundhra doesn't do enough to clarify that killing, however horrible the man, really isn't okay, even for beautiful women.
05/16/07
Top CriticWhat should have turned out as a terrific movie about the crime of spousal abuse has instead received the equivalent of a ham-handed molestation by director Mundhra.
06/08/07
In the end, Provoked is not provocative enough.
05/18/07
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