What's Your Raashee?

Ashutosh Gowarikar, a man who lets his work do all the talking, comes up with yet another unique film titled 'Whats Your Rashee' starring Harman Baweja and Priyanka Chopra. The movie is an adaptation of Gujarati author Madhu Rye's novel Kimball Ravenswood. It has Piggy Chops playing 12 different roles; each depicting the signs of the zodiac. With a new funda of zodiac marriage attached to it and Gowariker at the helm, What's Your Rashee sure does invite a lot of curiosity and expectations around it. Is it yet another Ashutosh Gowariker masterpiece?
What's Your Rashee is an interesting tale of drama, romance and wedlock. Yogesh Patel, an NRI from Chicago, is forced to hunt down his life partner in just 10 days to save his family from ruin. Well, what's the hurry all about? It's just that his astrologically blind family believes that his marriage could bring in a lot of 'dhan-sampathi', which could save his brother from being arrested or killed by a don for having gambled and lost their money in shares. With no option left and too many girls on his dad's list, Yogesh decides to meet one girl of each rashee to judge which rashee suits him better. What kind of an experience does it turn out to be? And which girl or rather rashee does he manage to lure into marrying him?
The concept is new, the casting is impressive and with Ashutosh Gowarikar as the director, expectations from WYR were high. And this time around, Ashu's eagle's for perfection is the villain. He wants family drama and even though the marriage is a hurried affair, romance and song is a must with almost every girl. An illicit-affair of mamaji (Darshan Jariwala) that in itself runs as a parallel story is merely added to fill in the comical space. The gunda's two side-kicks not just look weird but their periodic appearance is annoying. In attempts to make everything look complete, Ashu fails to ensure the essence of movie is carried through-out and also manage the run-time. Also, among the 12 stories, 2 or 3 of it are believable and the rest seem ridiculous. What's with the millionaire's daughter acting crazy only to find out if the groom is marrying her for what she is or her financial worth? And the pre-conceptualized contract marriage parts aren't convincing.
WYR has its moments but the story, although innovative and interesting, isn't suited for a big screen adaptation. The pace of the movie is extremely sluggish and dragged to its entirety. The un-ending list of songs wears you out completely and just adds to the runtime.
The movie purely strives and survives on performance. Kudos to Priyanka Chopra for her impeccable performance. She transforms into 12 different skins with different attitude, voice and spirit and pulls off every character with such dexterity. She took us by surprise with her performance in Fashion, charmed us with a warm and naughty performance in Dostana, continued to grow with a stunning performance in Kaminey, and now with WYR she proves just why she is the best in the industry today. As for Harman Baweja, his efforts are sincere, but he still needs to work on his acting skills. Anjan Shrivastava, Darshan Jariwala and Manju Singh are good.
To sum up, WYR has about 8 songs too many, is an hour and a half longer than it should have been and suffers from a poor screenplay. Wait for the DVD or television premier and watch it for Priyanka's performance.