• Friday, September 25, 2009

• Country:

  India

• Language:

  Hindi

• Runtime:

  192 min

2009

Never before have the sun and the moon played such an important role in romance.

What's Your Raashee? is the story of Yogesh Patel, 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.

Based on the Gujarati novel Kimball Ravenswood by Madhu Rye, What's Your Raashee? is Ashutosh Gowariker's first romantic comedy, starring Harman Baweja and Priyanka Chopra, and is produced by Ronnie Screwvala and Sunita A. Gowariker.

Maxabout Review

King-size disappointment. ..

If you're expecting an added Lagaan or Jodhaa Akbar, you will be truly disenchanted. This movie is a good deal supplementary off-the-wall as well as humorous than those serious films. If you can't handle lack of realism, something Bollywood is pretty much acknowledged for, as well as then What’s Your Raashee is lacking doubt not for you. There's very little rationale given as to why all 12 girls look the same, you just have to take it as it comes.

As a full What’s Your Raashee was to some extent disappointing, coming from one of the finest storytellers of India.. The hangover still looms large of this cinematic adaptation of astrological literature that isn’t absolutely logical or amusing. More often than not that's for the reason that I be on familiar terms by way of what an incredible job Ashutosh Gowariker can do. Harman does a healthier job than he did in Love Story 2050, but I also feel that any male actor could have filled his shoes.

While adapting the extremes of every character to the demands of screen, the story loses it’s plot (if at all it had any) in a big way only to be saved mercifully by the brilliant Priyanka Chopra. Wow. No actress has done a role like this that is for sure. She in reality busts out the acting chops in this motion picture. This is a great follow-up to Fashion and Kaminey, for sure.
The chemistry sandwiched between Harman as well as Priyanka is pretty interesting, because it keeps changing as the characters change.

Music has always been a strong point of Gowariker’s films here it’s a downer. Every zodiac breaks into a compulsory song with only very few being catchy. The story becomes so predictable in the second half that you wait for the movie to get over and start counting how many signs are still left and with no interest left to see which sign the protagonist ultimately marries.

Based on the novel 'Kimball Ravenswood' by Madhu Rye, the concept of WHAT'S YOUR RAASHEE? is interesting, but the big screen adaptation isn't. To start with, you connect with barely a few stories, mainly the one who has a past and also the final one, of an underage girl. But several stories appear ridiculous and hence, ruin the impact generated by several wonderful moments. The jeweller's daughter, who believes in punar janam, falls flat. Ditto for the other jeweller's daughter, who pretends to be childish so as to test the intentions of the dulha. It's farcical. But the most ludicrous one is the businesswoman who has a pre-nuptial agreement in place, even before meeting the dulha.

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. Anjan Srivastava is as usual. Visshwa Badola is first-rate. Pratik Dixit does well.

The story idea of What's Your Raashee is moderately fascinating, despite the fact that putting to death is not always the paramount it could be. It's the foremost time I've seen the conclusion credits roll by from side to side the alike name listed 12 periods in a chain that’s got to be attraction impressive!
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. If any film stands on a weak foundation [writing], even 1.30 hours seem never-ending. Conversely, if the writing is power-packed, even 3.30 hours of entertainment seems less. Let's not blame the length, for the biggest grosser of the world to date - TITANIC - also had a running time of 3.17 hours.

Ashutosh Gowariker gets it wrong this time thanks to the poor screenplay. The writing is the biggest culprit here. Sohail Sen's music is easy on the ears, but why so many songs? A few songs can easily be deleted. Piyush Shah's cinematography is perfect.

The film would have been a little more bearable had it been under three hours but a running time of 3 hours and 30 minutes appears far too much. If you may ask whether to check it out or not well there are only two reasons to watch this astrological blunder made by Ashutosh Gowariker – Priyanka Chopra and Priyanka Chopra.

Trivias

• Ashutosh Gowariker originally wanted A.R. Rahman to compose for the film, as he had composed for his earlier films Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001), Swades: We, the People (2004) and Jodhaa Akbar (2008), but he couldn't do the film because he wanted to compose for Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire (2008) instead.
• Priyanka Chopra plays twelve roles in this film. This breaks the record set by Kamal Hassan, who acted in ten roles in Dasavatharam (2008).
• The film is loosely inspired by "Bishôjo senshi Sêrâ Mûn" (1992), which also featured a set of girls who are based on their stars.
• The film was shot across 65 unique districts in Bombay, and some scenes were shot in Baroda. Only a few scenes were shot abroad, in Chicago.
• The film's teaser poster was designed by Ashutosh Gowariker and Nabeel Abbas. According to Gowariker, the poster gave off a "paperback feel which will not reveal much about the film at the same time will have a feel of the film."
• The song "Aaja Lehraate" was shot in one take. It was a draining process for Priyanka Chopra and Harman Baweja, as one mistake they made would require them to shoot the song from the beginning... which happened many times. Chopra fell ill due to the stress of shooting the film, and filming had to be delayed while she took a rest.
• The film's story is based on the novel "Kimball Revenswood" by Gujerati author Madhu Rye.