Viceroy’s House
January 29, 2018
Showings 4:30, 7:00 and 9:10pm
UK, India, Sweden | Rated: 14A | Drama | 106 minutes
It’s 1947 and British colonial rule in India is coming to an end. Queen Victoria’s great-grandson Lord Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville; Breathe, Downton Abbey) moves with his wife (Gillian Anderson; American Gods, The X-Files) and daughter for six months into the Viceroy’s House in Delhi. As the last viceroy, it’s his task to oversee the country’s transition to independence.
Soon, violence erupts between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, which also affects the 500 staff working at the viceroy’s palace. The love between Jeet (Manish Dayal; The Hundred Foot Journey), a young Hindu servant, and Aalia, a Muslim woman working at the palace, is in danger of being engulfed by the tumultuous events and their own conflicts with their respective religious communities. When the situation escalates they are forced to make a momentous decision.
Seventy years ago the country was partitioned into Muslim Pakistan and secular India. In her historical drama, director Gurinder Chadha, whose own family was caught up in the tragic events after the end of the British Empire, examines the political background to what occurred.