What a disappointment!

With Ashutosh Gowariker directing Priyanka Chopra in an unusual and new concept, I expected WYR to be entertaining and well-made. It was anything but that. It was reported that some portions of the movie were re-shot and yet, this is the final product?

Harman Baweja returns from the USA to get married because an astrologer (Rajesh Vivek) predicts he will inherit a lot of money on the day of his marriage. His family (Anjan Shrivastava and Manju Singh) needs the money to bail his elder brother (Dilip Joshi) out of a 4 crore debt. He decides to see 12 girls based on the 12 zodiac signs. His uncle (Darshan Jariwala) lines up prospective brides for him and he has to choose one in ten days. There is a sub-plot about his uncle’s extra-marital affair. The astrologer-cum-spy has been appointed by Harman’s father and aunt to be on his trail.

What’s good about WYR is that it doesn’t present Gujjus as caricatures. Attention-to-detail has been paid in terms of language (parents calling their children baby and baba), costumes (pretty ghaghras, salwars and casuals in bright hues courtesy Neeta Lulla), set design (notice the bright colours of the cushions and curtains in Harman’s house and the grandeur of Indralok), names (Pooja Goradia, Jhankkhana, Kajal Thakkar, Sanjana Shah) and body language. It doesn’t go over-the-top. The concept about a man meeting 12 girls, one of each raashee is very interesting and novel, lending plenty of scope to develop interesting and comic situations.

Harman Baweja springs a pleasant surprise. It is as much his movie as it is Priyanka’s. He looks good, is lean and fit, and is a decent, expressive actor. He doesn’t even dance like Hrithik anymore. Given a good director, he can deliver. Ashutosh has finally proved that Harman can act.

Priyanka has worked very hard on this movie and it shows. She brings out Hansa’s honesty and dignity through her eyes and restrained body language, Kajal’s vibrancy through her clothes, dance moves and restlessness, she makes pretty Sanjana very real, dancer Mallika Desai is frank and unforgiving, Arien Anjali is unintentionally funny as she grunts and has a funny walk yet her innocence shines through. She looks unrecognizable as 15 year-old Jhankhana and is very comical and naughty as Nandini, who comes from an orthodox family and aspires to be a model. Chandrika thinks Harman was her husband in a past life and has a dreamy look of longing in her eyes. She looks particularly nice as the super strict Rajni Parmar, and as Sanjana, Vishakha, Mallika, Hansa and Chandrika. Yet, she made a greater impact in Kaminey and Fashion.

Some scenes are quite funny like Harman’s first meeting with Anjali, the Arien, Vishakha is funny in a bratty-sort of way, Nandini’s transformation and the way she rattles off Chicago landmarks with a twang is entertaining. The scene with Hansa is simple and sweet. Sanjana is as normal as it gets. Rajni takes her PA everywhere and treats marriage as a contract is unbelievable. Thankfully, the humour isn’t slapstick. Dilip Joshi and Darshan Jariwala are funny.

On the negative side, the music is pathetic. There are 13 songs. The second title track and Jaao Na are good. There is an un-melodious song every ten minutes and you don’t connect with them. You sigh every time a song plays, wishing they would have paid more attention to the characters, like including a conversation between them and adding depth.

At 3.5 hours, the movie is too long and people don’t have the patience to sit through it, especially when the songs are so bad. You wait for him to finish meeting all the girls but there is no excitement left in you to bother about the girl he will marry. In the end, when they all scream ‘What’s your raashee?’ it reminds you of the way serials would end in the 90s; it is tacky and amateur. The movie has a 90s TV serial kind-of-feel at times.

The sub-plot of the uncle’s affair is meant to help Harman find his bride but it makes no sense. The misunderstandings are cleared so easily that it is hard to digest and everything falls loosely into place. You don’t expect such simplistic plots inundated with coincidences from Ashutosh who made a historical like Jodhaa Akbar so engrossing with clever sub-plots. This is his comedy film debut and it isn’t impressive; the direction is not deft. The humour seems laboured and forced. With four writers (Ashutosh Gowariker, Naushil Mehta, Amit Mistry, Tapan A. Bhatt) you’d expect the screenplay to be tight with fewer flaws. The second half is a drag and the editing is choppy.

Harman’s character is too good to be true. He stays in America but doesn’t drink and smoke and hasn’t had any girlfriends. Who are they kidding? Harman's brother owes money to an underworld don whose sidekicks keep threatening them. That track was unnecessary. In his first comic outing, Gowariker has incorporated too many hackneyed comic formulas like the don and the suspecting wife which fail to make an impact. You expect something original from him.

Nandini wants to be a model. She hails from a conservative family and manages to convince her orthodox parents in only one short conversation. The nymphomaniac astrologer’s track ends abruptly. Dancer Mallika rejects Harman because he refuses to lick an ice-candy because he is unsure about how clean the water is. Her reason is fickle and her reaction is exaggerated. It is also unexplained why Harman and his uncle are staying at a hotel in Mumbai. Harman’s grandfather adores him and calls him un-selfish but there are hardly any instances to prove it. Many questions are left unanswered.

You walk out of the theatre feeling disappointed. For the first time in years, an Ashutosh Gowariker movie is unlikely to win awards or even be nominated. He should stop fighting at award functions and concentrate on making better movies that are either rural or period as that is his forte. It is a better idea to read your daily horoscope than watch What’s Your Raashee?

Janhvi Patel/Hill Road Media