Review: What’s Your Raashee?

 For a director well-known in Bollywood and elsewhere for his successful epic flicks, Ashutosh Gowarikar has tried his hands on some thing very different for a change and failed miserably. It is sad to see that a notable director of such talent (note his award-winning epics such as Lagaan and Jodha Akbar) has wasted his creativity on something as a catastrophic rom-com like What’s Your Raashee?

For starters, the run time of the movie (211 minutes) is just ridiculous. We all know that the guy likes to make lengthy movies but even he should know better that a rom-com is by no means equivalent to an epic. Even by Bollywood standards, (oh please!). If the length of the movie doesn’t get to your nerves then just wait for it. Along comes an exhaustive array of songs that seems to never end. You can hear the audience groan in exasperation.
 

Moving on to the plot. One guy. 12 different girls, each from the 12 different zodiac signs. A cheesy storyline of boy-meets-several-girls-to-choose-himself-a-suitable-bride-to-save-his-family-from-a-financial-catastrophe. You have now got yourself the gist of What’s Your Raashee’s tacky plot. Harman Baweja and Priyanka Chopra play the leads. And yes, Chopra dons the 12 different charachters making cinematic history for being the first ever actress to play so many charachters in a single movie.

Was she another disappointment? Thankfully, not quite. I didn’t expect this at all but Priyanka Chopra played each charachter so gracefully, so delicately and so convincingly that she took me completely by surprise. Chopra’s 12-charachter avatar was the only saving grace of the movie in general. If by any chance the movie wins an award, I am certain that it would be Chopra bagging the award for best actress. I wouldn’t be surprised. Not the slightest bit.

The terribly long run time, the exhausting ensemble of songs and more songs, and an extremely poor storyline speaks for itself. Need I say more? But just to spell it out loud, Gowarikar has let all of us down. Such a shame, wouldn’t you say?