Trishna is a 2011 British romantic drama film written and directed by Michael Winterbottom. While it may appear at first glance to be an art-house film set in India, it is actually a bold, contemporary adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s classic 1891 novel, Tess of the d’Urbervilles . The film transports the story’s themes of class, gender, fate, and sexual exploitation from Victorian England to modern-day India. The Core Plot (Spoiler-Free Summary) The film follows Trishna (played by Freida Pinto, known for Slumdog Millionaire ), a young woman from a poor rural family in Rajasthan. To help her family financially, she takes a job at a resort hotel. There, she meets Jay (Riz Ahmed), the wealthy, charismatic, and pleasure-seeking son of a real estate developer.