Isn’t It Romantic Movie Review: Most Awful Film Of Priyanka Chopra’s Career

Isn’t It Romantic (now on Netflix)

Starring  Rebel Wilson, Liam Hemsworth, Adam Devine, Priyanka Chopra

Directed  by Tod-Strauss Schulson

Rating: *(1 star)

First things first.  What  is  Priyanka Chopra doing playing a  frisky floozie in this  bird-turd of a film? Second question:  why are we expected  to  invest  90 minutes in what looks  like  a rejected episode  of Inside Amy  Schumer?

 Isn’t It  Romantic is  just plainly  and simply awful.A  birdbrained  plot ,it casts  the overweight  Rebel Wilson as Natalie who is shown as incurably  romantic  in her childhood(she watches  Pretty Woman  like a Delhi housewife  eyeing  the lead singer at a Mata jagaran).Mom lectures  little Natalie  on the  impossibility  of  romantic love in this  cynical world.And voila!  Beti is  transformed into a diehard  cynic.

Or is she just running away  from the fact  that when you are  Size XL, the chances of finding an eligible match  are proportionally slim?

So  the  film has a solution.  It turns  all romantic  notions on  their head  when Natalie  hits her head in a steel pillar a  metro station  during a  mugging session(this is  as  exciting as  the script gets) and  waltzes into woozie-land. Alas ,the purportedly  wonderful  walk into wonderland is more bland than grand.

The  flimsy anorexic  film  ends up  celebrating rather than spoofing the conventions  of  the romcom genre.Natalie’s gay neighbour(Brandon Scott Jones) goes all  flabby-wristed and hip-twisted  , only to  tell us at the end that  gay men  don’t behave that way  in real life.

I would happily relegate this nondescript trivia  of a movie to the  trashcan were  it not for our Priyanka Chopra who plays a femme fatale all set to steal away our heroine Natalie’sbestfriend-and-potential boyfriend Josh(Adama Devine) who doesn’t really seem worth stealing.In what  could be described as her  most airheaded role of her career Priyanka  plays Isabelle.Her job  profile is  selfdescribed as  “yoga  ambassador”(whatever that means). But she seems to spend all her time posing preening pouting and  seducing  Josh, who , as mentioned earlier,  is  no Don Juan.

With a role that is briefer than the clothes she  is  given to wear(femme  fatales must  dress skimpily in our films) Priyanka  must have a good reason  for doing this film. We don’t know what  it is. A  fat paycheque , with a  leading lady to match? Clueless as we are about her  reasons for being in  a film where her role is what Aroona Irani played in Hindi films of  the 1970s, there is the comfort of  company for  Ms Chopra in  Chris Hemsworth whose  presence  here is even more baffling . He plays a jerk in  a towel who  has to pretend he finds  the hefty heroine attractive.

Perhaps  both Chopra and Hemsworth got bitten  by the  same romcom bug that  bites Rebel  Wilson. No no that mark on her neck is  not  a love byte. With a plot that could be written on one grain of rice(Basmati) , characters  who think it’s cool to pretend they love to  hate onscreen romance, and performances which  may  strongly qualify  for the Razberries,  Isn’t  It Romantic is right  up there with  Priyanka Chopra’s  desi classics Suneel Darshan’s  Andaz,Dharmesh  Darshan’s Aap Ki Khatir and of course her Hollywood debut  Baywatch.