2010 gave us one of the most exciting talents in Bollywood who even now is ruling the box office. It was the year when Band Baaja Baraat become the biggest hit. And with it we got Ranveer Singh. Bollywood was brimming with new talent who showed a lot of promises like Anushka Sharma, Ranveer, etc. The same continued in 2011 when Ranveer and Anushka came together again for “Ladies vs Ricky Bahl”.
Surprisingly people were not talking about Ranveer or Anushka. They were talking about a supporting actress whose bubbly presence and acting had caught the imagination of all the young guys of India. And that was Parineeti Chopra.
She was beautiful, and she was effortless. Everyone thought Bollywood had gotten a new female star who would rule the mind and heart of the Indian audience for a long long time. And for some time it very well seemed so. Her 2nd movie Ishaqzade was fresh, raw and different. What made the movie work was again the effortless acting of Parineeti. She was fearless and wore her heart on her sleeve.
Even her 4th movie “Hasee to Phasee” too was different and a good movie. Not as good as her earlier movies but still good.
Her next movie Dawat e Ishq was different but the story was mediocre and thus bombed at the Box Office.
Her bold choice took a backseat after Dawat e Ishq and Parineeti became cautious or I guess got sucked into the masala side of the Bollywood ( that’s the only explanation I could think of ). She chose to work with Ranveer & Govinda in Kill Dill which was a box office disaster. And something changed after this movie. Her ability to choose a good script disappeared. After the box office debacle of Kill Dill, Parineeti took a sabbatical of 2 years and came back with what looked like a promising movie “Meri Pyaari Bindu” alongside Ayushman Khurrana who was the flavor of the town at that time. But sadly the movie didn’t work and Parineeti once again took shelter in masala movie genre. She starred in “Golmaal” which although was a box office success, her role in it was forgettable.
Looking at the success of masala movie Parineeti chose “Namaste England” which was made on the success of “Namaste London”. But apart from the suffix, nothing was similar. Namaste England, unlike its predecessor, bombed at the box office.
The current flavor of Bollywood was small-town stories that were huge hit like – Badhai Ho, Stree, Lukka Chuppi etc and hence Parineeti chose “Jabariya Jodi” alongside the no expression guy Siddharth Malhotra. But it’s not enough to have a small-town story, it has to be a good story. And that’s where it faltered. This movie too bombed at the box office.
Parineeti has somewhere lost her effortless performance. The way she acted in Jabariya Jodi, Namaste England or even Golmaal looked like she was just not putting any energy or involvement in owning the character.
I hope she regains her mojo and chooses a kick-ass project because if the trend continues, she would soon be out of the Bollywood scene.
