What’s Your Rashee? - Movie Review

Published: January 14, 2010

By JENNIFER HOPFINGER

Starring Priyanka Chopra and Harman Baweja

Bollywood movies are long—for good reason. The time commitment required of the audience heightens their emotional investment in the story. (The same is true of operas, which are often as long or even longer than Hindi films.) The effect can be powerfully moving, even for Americans accustomed to shorter films. What’s Your Rashee?, a tedious romantic comedy with a run time of three hours and 25 minutes, is not an example of Bollywood’s artful use of length, but an unpleasant test of endurance.

The premise of the film is interesting—one actress, the talented Priyanka Chopra, plays 12 different characters, one for each zodiac sign, or rashee. But that’s several characters too many to explore in one film. Chopra doesn’t even appear until a full half hour into it, and by then, the audience has suffered too much of her milquetoast co-star, Harman Baweja, to care which one of her avatars (each with a distinct personality and hairstyle) ends up with his character, Yogesh. At some point, you’ll start counting how many more signs are left (I began keeping track at six).

Yogesh is a student at the University of Chicago. His brother back in Mumbai is involved in a financial scam and must pay restitution, and he also owes a large sum to the mob. His desperate parents consult an astrologer, who tells them Yogesh will get married in 10 days and acquire vast wealth on that day, thereby solving all their money problems. Yogesh’s grandfather—who knows nothing about the prediction—fulfills it by deciding to give his entire estate to Yogesh as a wedding gift. The family summons Yogesh home and tells him he’s got 10 days to find a bride. He doesn’t want to marry under these conditions, but agrees to do it for his brother’s sake. Yogesh is a simple man and he believes there are only 12 types of people in the world, according to the zodiac, so he decides to meet one woman from each sign and pick the one he likes best. He goes out with an unsophisticated Aries, a beautiful Aquarian, a bubbly Gemini, an intense Leo, a passionate Scorpio, a generous Virgo, a serious Libra, and so on.

All 12 women have some good qualities as well as some flaw, problem, or conflicting goal that renders them imperfect matches, and Yogesh can’t make up his mind. But the real question is why would any of them want to marry this drip?

What’s Your Rashee? is rated Skip.

Community - News - Reviews - Commentary - About