Despite some superficial similarities in plot, Biwi No. 1 (1999) is not based on Faye Weldon's dark feminist fable The Life and Loves of a She-Devil. On the other hand, it is pretty blatantly inspired by the 1989 movie She-Devil, which pretends to adapt Weldon's novel. It's an adaptation of an adaptation, and the results are decidedly mixed.
Pooja (Karisma Kapoor) lives a happy life in her spacious house with her husband Prem (Salman Khan), her children Rinku and Pinky (Master Shahrukh and Baby Karishma), her mother-in-law Sushila (Himani Shivpuri), and their dog Tiger. Prem is a successful advertising executive (very successful - their house is huge!), Pooja is the perfect housewife, and everybody's just really, really happy.
Prem is looking for a new model for the agency, and just as he's describing his ideal candidate (5'8", brown eyes, and a 36-24-36 figure - Prem is a simple man) aspiring model Rupali (Sushmita Sen) walks in, and she's 5'8" with brown eyes and a 36-24-36 figure. She gets the job, and Rupali and Prem keep meeting by "coincidence." In another movie Rupali would be a greedy gold-digger pursuing a married man, and she does tell her smitten photographer friend Deepak (Saif Ali Khan) that she's looking for a man who can support her in comfort, but it's Prem doing the pursuing here, and Rupali doesn't yet know that he's married; Pooja was too busy to go to the movie with him one time, so he decided to plummet headlong into adultery.
Prem arranges a trip to Switzerland for himself and Rupali, and at the airport he runs into his old friend Lakhan (Anil Kapoor) and his lovely wife Lovely (Tabu), who are also on their way to Switzerland. naturally wackiness ensues, and after a series of farcical events Lakhan has learned that Prem is having an affair, while Rupali has learned that Prem is married. Prem manages to smooth things over with the old "My parents forced me to marry a mentally unstable woman, but I really love you, baby!" routine, and they all return to India.
For some unfathomable reason Lakhan decides to keep Prem's secret, while Prem buys Rupali a house and a car and uses her for all of the agency's modelling work, and he keeps on lying to absolutely everybody. It can't last, though, mostly because Prem is a numpty. Tiger the dog discovers Prem celebrating Karva Chauth with Rupali and brings Pooja to the scene (because this is the kind of thing that dogs do in Bollywood) and Pooja gives her husband an ultimatum: give up Rupali or leave the house. He leaves the house.
Pooja is heartbroken, but Lakhan has realized his mistake and promises to bring Prem home. It doesn't work, so instead he urges Pooja to fight back using the weapons at her disposal, starting with the children. Soon Pooja drops Rinku and Pinky off at her estranged husband's doorstep, telling him that they're his children and she doesn't want anything to do with them. The children immediately start acting up. (In this movie the children are in on the plan, while in Weldon's novel they're just naturally horrible.) Next, she drops off Prem's mother, who is also in on the plan.
On paper Prem owns 49% of the advertising agency, while Pooja owns 51%. Pooja takes advantage of this by firing Rupali, which ,means that Rupali has been forced into the role of housewife and mother, while Pooja is pretending to be young and carefree, wearing Western clothing and even putting together a portfolio of modelling shots. Prem is becoming jealous, and Pooja is just getting started.
Or she would be, but here's the thing. Weldon's novel is the story of a woman scorned who takes revenge on the people who wronged her, taking everything that belonged to other woman Mary Fisher. The 1989 movie wasn't anywhere near as dark (or as good) but it was still a black comedy about revenge. Biwi No 1 was directed by David Dhawan, who is anything but a feminist, and Pooja isn't interested in revenge, she just wants her man back. That changes everything. The goal is to preserve the marriage at all costs, and nobody really stops to question whether Prem is worth the bother.
Biwi No. 1 features a fantastic cast, and also Salman Khan at his most annoying; It is a minor miracle that Sushmita Sen manages to make Rupali a sympathetic character when the script is against her. The songs are mostly good (apart from the title song), and the movie is occasionally funny, but I have never seen an adaptation undercut the spirit of the original work this comprehensively.
