Taking sand to the beach. Review on Saawariya

Applying his own treatment to existing cinematic content from across the globe, seems to have become the bailiwick of director/producer Sanjay Leela Bansali. And, undoubtedly, these adaptations of prior works of world renowned directors do sport a lot of shimmer. As he goes for more gloss yet again, his latest work gets an extra boost from the sponsorship of Hollywood co-producer Sony. And, in the final product, for sure we do see all of that big budget, and his unmistakable passion and dedication for his craft, and the best that only he can extract from his crew and cast.

But alas, effective results require more than all of that. If you don't have your eyes set on your audience, it really doesn't matter what items you pack for the project and what steps you take in the process of making a lavish movie. You may end up with something that while is quite shiny, is also very shallow, merely suggestive of its source of inspiration, and in this case simply redundant at best due to the large number of other and more impressive adaptations of the same subject matter - made into a movie 9 times over, in English, Italian, French, Hindi (Chalia 1960, Ahista Ahista 2006), Tamil (Iyarkai-2003).

It is Fyodor Dostoevsky's short story about two lonely hearts. Called 'White Nights', it was written in 1848 with St Petersburg as the backdrop and tells the story of a nameless loner who is in search of love. He ends up meeting a girl called Nastenka who is lonely too, but for a different reason. She is actually more forlorn and listless than anything else, because she has been pining and waiting for her lover to return from Moscow where he had gone a year ago, with a promise to come back with enough money for them to settle down. Dostoevsky's title of 'white nights', likens their friendship to the transitional time before summer when the midnight sun stretches days into all nighters in the polar latitudes. Dostoevsky uses their complex alliance as a tool to offer a discussion on companionship and love, showing us where they intersect and where they don't - we have the loner who sees them as one, and we have Nastenka, who can only accept his companionship, and offer some hope of love if her lover were not to return as promised.

Here, the loner is Ranbir Raj (Ranbir Kapoor), a lead singer at club RK. Nastenka is Sakina (Sonam Kapoor) and her lover is Imaan (Salman Khan). Lillian (Zohra Segal) is the land lady, who replaces Matryona the maid.

Instead of applying the classic into a modern story, the script by Bhansali tries to stay more focused on presenting just a lavish audio/visual translation of the original story. Music and St Petersburg! When it is all put together, the end product looks quite like a puppet show that's got claustrophobia and cacophony written all over it. To an audience that is very used to a relentless fare of drama and music, he brings more of it, only with even lesser hint of life and realism. He gets lost in the sets, and shows us what a glutton he is for glitter. His demanding camera, in the hands of talented Ravi Chandran, sadly gets quite obsessed with artificial lighting. No edge is spared from white shiny objects, not even the ear lobes of the leading men. Most of the time, it is all diamonds and things that look equally shiny –rain drops, snow and so on. You feel very relieved whenever Ravi C's camera goes for closeups of people. Things look a bit normal then. And, under Bhansali's direction, the cast indeed did a marvelous job of making the most of the dispirited lines. Rani Mukherjee's sincere portrayal of the invented character of Gulabji, is very refreshing. Zohra is outstanding as Lillian. The new pair give all they can to their roles.

Monty Sharma's tunes are mostly forgettable except for 'Jabse Tere' by Shaan.

If Saawariya keeps one engaged, it is to observe its sparkle and its technical and theatrical sincerity. For Bhansali, this is another misstep much like 'Black'. We all want him to push the envelope, but he needs to work more on striking a balance, like he did with Devdas, or better yet, do so with original subject matters.