What's Your Raashee?

Finding a dream girl is tough. And finding her in just 10 days is even tougher. Ashutosh Gowariker gives his take on Gujarati writer Madhu Rye’s novel ‘Kimball Ravenswood’, (adapted earlier as ‘A Suitable Bride’ by Naushil Mehta for theatre buffs and as ‘Mr Yogi’ by Ketan Mehta in 1989 for Doordarshan audience) in ‘What’s Your Rashee?’.

The story of sifting through 12 temperamental girls, representing each zodiac sign to find Ms Right, is pretty tempting. Never before have the sun signs, the moon and of course the hair designer played such an important role in a film.

Priyanka Chopra, waif-like, has put in loads of hard work, getting under the skin of each of her characters. Her equation with a much-improved Harman Baweja enlivens the proceedings, but in flashes.

The culprit of this ‘sleep-session’ is none other than Ashutosh who crams in as many as 13 songs, ruining many moments of impact. His characterisation of each of Priyanka’s roles suffers because of a song popping up every now and then. It eats into the film’s pace as well. The supporting cast, with a fine theatre background do their jobs well, but only for the duration of their onscreen presence. Except for 3-4 songs, the music does not complement the film.

Ashutosh does strike the humour chord now and then, but after making grand opuses, he finds it difficult to tone down the scale. To add insult to injury, he has not got his Zodiac Girls to depict the traits of the signs they belong to. Guess Mr Gowarikar had not seen his ‘raashee’ before making this astrological blunder.