“Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha winds back the clock to the eve of Indian Partition for Viceroy’s House, a big-hearted upstairs-downstairs drama. The upstairs is as high as you could go in 1947 India: Lord Louis Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville) is the last viceroy of India. His job is to transfer the country to independence and he’s joined in a sumptuous Delhi palace by his wife (Gillian Anderson) and daughter (Lily Travers).
“Downstairs, meanwhile, is a microcosm of wider tensions: opinions vary among the Indian staff, Hindus and Muslims, about whether their country should remain united – the preferred option of Gandhi (Neeraj Kabi) and Nehru (Tanveer Ghani) – or split into India and Pakistan, in accordance with the wishes of Muslim leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Denzil Smith).
“The escalating crisis is echoed in the love story between Mountbatten’s servant, Jeet (Manish Dayal), a Punjabi Hindu, and his childhood sweetheart, Aalia (Huma Qureshi), a Muslim. As a simple walk through the headline history of the time, Viceroy’s House is illuminating.” - Time Out