''Viceroy's House'' is a 2017

historical drama A historical drama (also period drama, period piece or just period) is a dramatic work set in the past, usually used in the context of film and television, which presents history, historical events and characters with varying degrees of fiction s ...

film directed by

Gurinder Chadha Gurinder Kaur Chadha, (born 10 January 1960) is a Kenyan-born British film director of Indian origin. Most of her films explore the lives of Indians living in England. The common theme in her work showcases the trials of Indian women residing ...

and written by Paul Mayeda Berges,

Moira Buffini Moira Buffini (born 29 May 1965) is an English dramatist, director, and actor. Early life Buffini was born in Cheshire to Irish parents, and attended St Mary's College at Rhos-on-Sea in Wales as a day girl. She studied English and Drama at Gold ...

, and Chadha. The film stars

Hugh Bonneville Hugh Richard Bonniwell Williams (born 10 November 1963), known professionally as Hugh Bonneville, is an English actor. He is best known for portraying Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, in the ITV historical drama series ''Downton Abbey'' from ...

, Gillian Anderson, Manish Dayal, Huma Qureshi, and

Michael Gambon Sir Michael John Gambon (; 19 October 1940 – 27 September 2023) was an Irish-English actor. Gambon started his acting career with Laurence Olivier as one of the original members of the Royal National Theatre. Over his six-decade-long career ...

. It was selected to be screened out of competition at the

67th Berlin International Film Festival The 67th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 9 to 18 February 2017 with Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven as president of the jury. '' Django'', directed by Etienne Comar, opened the festival. The Golden Bear was awarded to the ...

. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 3 March 2017, while the Hindi dubbed version titled ''Partition: 1947'' was released in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

on 18 August 2017, three days after its 70th

Independence Day An independence day is an annual event memorialization, commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or Sovereign state, statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or after the end of a milit ...

. It was released worldwide on 1 September 2017. ''Viceroy's House'' is based on '' Freedom at Midnight'' by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, and ''The Shadow of the Great Game: The Untold Story of Partition'' by Narendra Singh Sarila.

Plot

Lord Dickie Mountbatten arrives at Viceroy's House in

New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...

in 1947 with his strong-willed wife

Edwina The name Edwina is a feminine form of the male name Edwin, which derives from Old English and means "rich friend." Edwin was a popular name until the time of the Norman Conquest, then fell out of favour until Victorian era, Victorian times. People ...

and daughter Pamela. As the final

Viceroy of India The governor-general of India (1833 to 1950, from 1858 to 1947 the viceroy and governor-general of India, commonly shortened to viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom in their capacity as the Emperor of ...

, he is in charge of overseeing the dissolution of the

British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...

and the establishment of an independent Indian nation. Mountbatten attempts to mediate a disagreement between the two major Indian political leaders,

Jawaharlal Nehru Jawaharlal Nehru (14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat, and statesman who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20th century. Nehru was a pr ...

, who wants India to remain intact as one nation after independence, and

Muhammad Ali Jinnah Muhammad Ali Jinnah (born Mahomedali Jinnahbhai; 25 December 187611 September 1948) was a barrister, politician, and the founder of Pakistan. Jinnah served as the leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until the inception of Pa ...

, who wishes to establish the separate

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

state of

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

. Meanwhile, Mountbatten's newly arrived valet Jeet encounters the beautiful Alia, whom he had fallen in love with previously. Alia continues to spurn Jeet because he is

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

and she

; she fears that she will disappoint her invalid father Ali, whom Jeet had helped during a spell of imprisonment at British hands. With riots erupting across India, their few non-Indian troops thinly spread and the loyalties of their Indian troops conflicted between

Sikh Sikhs (singular Sikh: or ; , ) are an ethnoreligious group who adhere to Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The term ''Si ...

, Muslim and Hindu, the British decide to accelerate the independence process. Initially influenced by

Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British ...

, Mountbatten is intent upon a one-state solution, but with intensifying violence between Muslims and Hindus he reluctantly accepts the

Partition of India The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Dominion of India, Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Paki ...

. He is given only a couple months to carve out a separate state from the existing territory, with the help of an English

King's Counsel A King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch (or their Viceroy, viceregal representative) of some Commonwealth realms as a "Counsel learned in the law". When the reigning monarc ...

, Cyril Radcliffe, who had no experience of India. Jeet continues to pursue Alia, despite the fact that she has been betrothed since childhood to another man, and like the other servants at Viceroy's House they are forced to choose between staying in India or going to Pakistan. Mountbatten is enraged to find that his Chief of Staff Lord Ismay has been working covertly to draw the boundaries of Pakistan in order to create a

buffer state A buffer state is a country geographically lying between two rival or potentially hostile great powers. Its existence can sometimes be thought to prevent conflict between them. A buffer state is sometimes a mutually agreed upon area lying between t ...

between the Indian subcontinent and the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and to allay fears that a socialist-leaning united India would give the Soviets access to the

warm water port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manche ...

Karachi Karachi is the capital city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Sindh, Pakistan. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, largest city in Pakistan and 12th List of largest cities, largest in the world, with a popul ...

. He realizes that he has been used as a pawn and the displacement of millions of people will result. Jeet is devastated to learn meanwhile that his entire family has been slaughtered in

Punjab Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...

. Although Alia rejects her fiancé when he returns to claim her, she chooses to depart for Pakistan with her father. Days later Jeet reads in the newspaper that the night train she had boarded was attacked and everyone was killed. In anger he brandishes a knife at Mountbatten, before resigning his post. With Delhi overwhelmed with refugees, the Mountbattens decide to stay on in India to assist where they can. While Jeet volunteers to help with the refugees, Alia is brought in badly injured but alive, the lone survivor of the train attack. She recognizes Jeet and shouts for him, and the two are reunited.

Cast

as Lord Dickie Mountbatten * Gillian Anderson as Lady Edwina Mountbatten * Manish Dayal as Jeet Kumar * Huma Qureshi as Aalia Noor *

as Lord Lionel 'Pug' Ismay * Om Puri as Ali Rahim Noor *

David Hayman David Hayman (born 9 February 1948) is a Scottish film, television and stage actor and director from Glasgow. His acting credits include '' Sid and Nancy'' (1986), '' Hope and Glory'' (1987), '' Rob Roy'' (1995), '' The Jackal'' (1997), '' Tri ...

as Ewart *

Simon Callow Simon Phillip Hugh Callow (born 15 June 1949) is an English actor. Known as a character actor on stage and screen, he has received numerous accolades including an Olivier Award and Screen Actors Guild Award as well as nominations for two BAFT ...

as Cyril Radcliffe * Denzil Smith as

* Neeraj Kabi as

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...

* Tanveer Ghani as

* Lily Travers as Pamela Mountbatten * Jaz Deol as Duleep Singh * Arunoday Singh as Asif * Roberta Taylor as Miss Reading * Darshan Jariwala as Guptaji * Trishaan as Farrukh *

Raj Zutshi Rajendranath Zutshi (born 4 February 1961) is an Indian film and television actor. Personal life Zutshi was born on 4 February 1961 in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir (state), Jammu and Kashmir, India into a Kashmiri Pandit family. Raj Zutshi is a ...

as Head Chef Ram Lal Chandra * Raja Samar Singh Sarila as ADC Sayed Ahsan * Sarah-Jane Dias as Sunita * Samrat Chakrabarti as Moshin * Hriiday Malhotra as Sanjit * Simon Williams as Viscount Wavell * Lucy Fleming as Lady Wavell * Noah Zeiler as Henry F. Grady * Robin Soans as Sir Evan Meredith Jenkins * Terence Harvey as Sir Fred Burrows * Nicholas Blane as Sir Olaf Kirkpatrick Caroe * Yusuf Khurram as

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel (; ''Vallabhbhāī Jhāverbhāī Paṭel''; 31 October 1875 – 15 December 1950), commonly known as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, was an Indian independence activist and statesman who served as the first Deputy Prime ...

* Anil Bhagwat as

Liaquat Ali Khan Liaquat Ali Khan (1 October 189516 October 1951) was a Pakistani lawyer, politician and statesman who served as the first prime minister of Pakistan The prime minister of Pakistan (, Roman Urdu, romanized: Wazīr ē Aʿẓam , ) is the he ...

* Eran Bein as Sir Eric Miéville * Kamal Karamchandani as Maulana Azad * Majid Khan as

Acharya Kripalani Jivatram Bhagwandas Kripalani (11 November 1888 – 19 March 1982), popularly known as Acharya Kripalani, was an Indian politician, noted particularly for holding the presidency of the Indian National Congress during the transfer of power in ...

Production

On 30 April 2015, it was announced that

and Gillian Anderson would star in the fictional period drama film ''Viceroy's House'' to be directed by

, which Chadha scripted along with Paul Mayeda Berges and

. The film set in 1947 during the

, and the life inside the Viceroy's House, would be produced by Chadha, Deepak Nayar, and Paul Ritchie.

Pathé Pathé SAS (; styled as PATHÉ!) is a French major film production and distribution company, owning a number of cinema chains through its subsidiary Pathé Cinémas and television networks across Europe. It is the name of a network of Fren ...

and

BBC Films BBC Film (formerly BBC Films) is the feature film-making arm of the BBC. It was founded on 18 June 1990, and has produced or co-produced some of the most successful British films of recent years, including ''Truly, Madly, Deeply (film), Truly, ...

would be co-financing the film. On 1 September 2015, more cast was announced including Manish Dayal, Huma Qureshi, Tanveer Ghani, Denzil Smith, Neeraj Kabi, Om Puri, Lily Travers,

, and

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as the ...

on the film began on 30 August 2015 in

Jodhpur Jodhpur () is the second-largest city of the north-western Indian state of Rajasthan, after its capital Jaipur. As of 2023, the city has a population of 1.83 million. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Jodhpur district and ...

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; Literal translation, lit. 'Land of Kings') is a States and union territories of India, state in northwestern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the List of states and union territories of ...

, India, where it was shot for eight weeks. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 3 March 2017.

Soundtrack

Track listing

Original score

Additional tracks

Three additional tracks were released for the dubbed

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

version of the film.

Release

''Viceroy's House'' was selected to be screened out of competition at the

on 12 February 2017. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 3 March 2017; it was dubbed in

, titled ''Partition: 1947'', and released in India on 18 August 2017. It was banned in

Reception

The film received generally positive reviews from critics. On review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 76% based on 41 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' praised the film for "cramming ample history into a compact running time without sacrificing flow or interest." ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' called it "educational, if melodramatic," concluding that "the movie accomplishes a difficult task, making sense of a complicated period in history."

Historicity

Chadha described the film as the '' Upstairs, Downstairs'' view of the

. She defended her film against criticisms of historical

heterodoxy In religion, heterodoxy (from Ancient Greek: , + , ) means "any opinions or doctrines at variance with an official or orthodox position". ''Heterodoxy'' is also an ecclesiastical jargon term, defined in various ways by different religions and ...

, saying that she was guided by Narendra Singh Sarila's 2006 book ''The Shadow of the

Great Game The Great Game was a rivalry between the 19th-century British Empire, British and Russian Empire, Russian empires over influence in Central Asia, primarily in Emirate of Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Qajar Iran, Persia, and Tibet. The two colonia ...

: The Untold Story of India's Partition'', which was claimed to be based on secret documents discovered in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

. Pakistani '' Guardian'' columnist Fatima Bhutto described the film as 'a servile pantomime of partition'. Chadha in response said that "her film about India's partition of 1947, far from ignoring the freedom struggle, celebrates it." ''The Guardian'' summed up the response to the film by saying that "Notices by film reviewers have been muted but reasonably kind", while the reaction from historians was "damning". The newspaper was very critical of the film's climax, criticizing the lack of corroborating research to back up the central claim that Pakistan was created as part of a conspiracy by

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

and the British government - particularly as in reality it was a Labour government at the time led by

Clement Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British statesman who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. At ...

, not Churchill. The film's postscript reads: "The partition of India led to the largest mass migration in human history. 14 million people were displaced. One million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs died. This film is dedicated to all of those who died and to all those who survived partition."

References

External links

*
''Viceroy's House'' on Bend It Networks
{{WSA – Public Choice 2017 films Films directed by Gurinder Chadha Films scored by A. R. Rahman Films with screenplays by Gurinder Chadha Films with screenplays by Paul Mayeda Berges British Indian films British historical drama films Indian historical drama films English-language Indian films Films set in the British Raj Films set in the partition of India Films set in the Indian independence movement Films shot in Rajasthan Films set in Delhi Drama films based on actual events British Empire war films Interfaith romance films BBC Film films Pathé films Reliance Entertainment films Films set in 1947 Cultural depictions of Mahatma Gandhi Cultural depictions of Jawaharlal Nehru Cultural depictions of Lord Mountbatten Cultural depictions of Muhammad Ali Jinnah Cultural depictions of Vallabhbhai Patel 2010s historical drama films 2017 drama films Film censorship in Pakistan 2010s British films India–Pakistan relations in popular culture Censored films English-language historical drama films