What’s with you Ashi – sorry Ashutosh Gowarikar. The hangover still looms large of this cinematic adaptation of astrological literature that isn’t absolutely logical or amusing.
What’s Your Raashee? is the story of Yogesh Patel (Hurman Baweja), a young man who in his heart has always wanted a love marriage. Till suddenly he is told that he must find his dream girl within ten days to save his family from utter ruin.
Finding the dream girl is tough enough. Finding her in a hurry is even tougher.
His solution is simple; he will meet one girl from each raashee – sun sign, as he feels that is the best way to make sure he finds a suitable wife, while also giving himself twelve chances to fall in love. Two meetings per day gives him six days to meet them, three days to make a final decision and he can get married on the tenth day, or so he thinks.
Ashutosh Gowarikar’s idea of casting the same actress in 12 different characters has been handled very efficiently and doesn’t distract the audience much. But a song number for each character gets too monotonous and boring after a point of time. Also with as many as a dozen Priyanka Chopra, one gets somewhat puzzled in identifying one from the other more so because most of them aren’t defined and designed distinctly different.
Priyanka Chopra is expressive in each of her characters though some are just too shallow and repetitive. She glides effortlessly into each avatar switching her body language, dialect and performance very smoothly and is beautiful in, both, her appeal and act. But it’s Hurman Baweja with whom the audience can relate to immediately as he networks with each of the girls. He has a comfortable screen presence and a compelling connect. Rajesh Vivek is still in the Lagaan hangover. Darshan Zariwala hams it up every now and then.
Both Lagaan and Jodhaa Akbar had 3 hour plus runtime but the length was never a setback since their genre and narrative demanded that. But for a romantic comedy, What’s Your Raashee is tediously long and still lacks conviction.
