The script is melodramatic, and Rai's lead performance is thin stuff.
Comment
05/18/07
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
Top Critic[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
Top CriticJag Mundhra’s melodrama is pitched at an almost deafening level, drowning out any tiny notes of nuance in a tale of tears of triumph.
05/10/07
What 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
Account of a legal campaign launched by women to expose the brutality of domestic violence and male chauvinism.
05/17/07
Provoked rarely ducks below its glossy surface.
05/18/07
Top CriticIn keeping its inflammatory subject matter at arm’s length, Provoked does exactly the same to its audience.
05/14/07
Top CriticDirector 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 CriticHoly Burning Bed! If Britain had its own equivalent of the Lifetime channel, "Provoked" would be tailor made for it.
05/12/07
There are some tremendous lessons of courage and justice to be taken from Provoked, however the drama is often so forced that there are times when the film is hard to watch.
05/11/07
For viewers prepared to go with the flow, it works at a gut, movie-movie level.
04/05/07
Top CriticFor 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
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
Provoked is a feminist homily of the shrillest order.
05/08/07
Top CriticUnfortunately, Provoked possesses the tinny production values and schmaltzy music of a prime-time special, despite its ensemble of terrific actors.
05/17/07
Top Critic[T]his conventional but deftly handled movie lays it bare, plays it straight, and eschews all the soppy melodrama we've come to expect from such solemn displays of aggressive, mad-as-hell feminism.
05/11/07
feels largely meaningless and inconsequential
05/17/07
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 CriticUnfortunately, syrupy music, reductive characterizations and bland cinematography turn her case into an earnest feminist fable that plays like an afterschool special for grown-ups. (Call it the anti-Longford.)
05/10/07
What is exemplary about Provoked, is how these women survive and prevail simply but unequivocably through the resilient emotional fortitude they impart to one another.
05/09/07
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