Viceroy’s House is very watchable - but its account of Indian independence is limited

Dr Ashvin Immanuel Devasundaram, Lecturer in World Cinema, Queen Mary University of London, reviews Gurinder Chadha's latest film: Viceroy's House. You may be forgiven for thinking that Downton Abbey has returned - and gone a little rogue. The grandiose Viceroy's House has rolled into cinemas with Hugh Bonneville at the helm and featuring a central upstairs/downstairs narrative. But this is not Downton-Abbey-in-India. This is Gurinder Chadha's latest film, an account of the traumatic process of Partition to mark the 70th anniversary, this year, of Indian independence. This is certainly an interesting approach for a film promising to deal with such a fractious and complex topic as the Partition, and works to varying success. Chadha's film is an absorbing, although not always representative, melange of Partition-related politics and period drama.