Although Saawariya never rises to the great heights of Luchino Visconti’s black and white film Le Notti Bianche, it’s still one of the finest love stories to emerge out of the augean pits of Bollywood in recent years.

Like the Italian film Le Notti Bianche (1957), Saawariya is also an adaptation of Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1848 novella White Nights.

It’s the tender love story of a beautiful young girl waiting on a bridge for the return of her loved one and a separate young man who falls hopelessly in love with this angel after spotting her one night crying on the bridge.

Compared to the unwatchable horror shows that his peers like Farah Khan, Farhan Akhtar and Pradeep Sarkar unleash on unsuspecting Bollywood fans, director Sanjay Leela Bhansali of Black fame has turned in a minor classic in Saawariya.

While Le Notti Bianche’s director Luchino Visconti had the advantage of working with established actors like Marcello Mastroianni and Maria Schell, Sanjay Leela Bhansali had to make do with fresh clay in Ranbhir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor.

Both Marcello Mastroianni and his co-star Maria Schell had over 15 years of experience behind them when they took up Le Notti Bianche. In the final scene of Le Notti Bianche, when Maria spots her lover on the bridge, she walks slowly at first, then hesitantly and finally with a scream she shrugs off her coat in the snow and runs to her lover even as Marcello Mastroianni is in anguish. That is a scene for the ages.

But given the disadvantage of having to work with two neophytes, perhaps Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s achievement is greater. Long after the Om Shanti Oms, Laaga Chunari Mein Daags and Chak de Indias are relegated to forgotten footnotes and dusty archives, Saawariya will evoke respectful references in hushed tones.

Visually stunning, Saawariya has been filmed almost entirely on sets unlike most Hindi films that are routinely shot on outdoor locations ranging from Brazil to Switzerland and Australia and all the places in between.

A fine adaptation for Bollywood movie lovers, Saawariya is a delightful movie in many ways.

Besides the fine story, there is great music and more than decent performances by lead actors Ranbhir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Ranbhir Kapoor is a better actor and far superior dancer than that overrated narcissist Shahrukh Khan.

Sonam Kapoor (Anil Kapoor’s daughter) does an OK job in Saawariya but is overshadowed by Ranbhir Kapoor. Did we mention that we saw shades of Tabu in Sonam?

To our immense delight, director Sanjay Leela Bhansali has cast the 92-year-old gem of an actress Zohra Sehgal (we saw her last in Cheeni Kum) as the owner of a small guest house in Saawariya.

As in with her last movie Laaga Chunari Mein Daag, Rani Mukerji is a prostitute in Saawariya too. But this time, she turns in a memorable performance.

The less said about Salman Khan’s forgettable performance in Saawariya the better.

Music is one of Saawariya’s key appeals. Frankly, we liked all the songs in Saawariya. If pressed, we’d confess to liking Chhabeela and Saawariya (bar song) a wee bit more than the other songs.

Saawariya is the clear winner in this Diwali’s clash of Bollywood titans.

In his review of Saawariya, New York Times’ film critic A.O.Scott wrote:

The experience is visually enchanting, cloyingly sweet, at once utterly chaste and insanely erotic, and finally exhausting. Aficionados will not settle for less.

When limitless ambition collides with limited talent on the Bollywood Highway, the end result is a road wreck called Om Shanti Om.

A dispiritingly commonplace theme of reincarnation packaged in a disjointed, tracing-paper-thin plot with ho-hum performances by the lead actors renders a mediocre movie that only addled fans of Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan would love.

Shahrukh Khan’s boundless ambitions and braggadocio are foiled by the talentless ensemble of acting, story, music, dance and comedy that he has cobbled together for Om Shanti Om, a home production of his Red Chillies Entertainment company.

When Hollywood can offer movies featuring ununsual themes like Lars and the Real Girl this season, why are our Bollywood bozos still trapped in five-decade-old plots?

After five dozen movies and two decades in front of the camera, if Om Shanti Om is the best that Shahrukh Khan can deliver it’s a pretty darn shame.

Watch Chances Are (1989) featuring Robert Downey in a reincarnation theme movie and you’ll realize how inadequate Shahrukh Khan is as an actor. 

Even by Bollywood’s watered down standards, Om Shanti Om’s story is not remotely credible.

Logic beats a hasty retreat in the clumsy and inexperienced hands of director Farah Khan, who also takes credit for the assinine story and choreography.

If there was a Nuremberg court for incompetent Bollywood directors, Farah Khan’s repellent offering in Om Shanti Om alone would guarantee her the maximum sentence.

In his first avatar in Om Shanti Om, Shahrukh Khan plays a junior film artiste Om Prakash Makhija in love with the  ”Dreamy Girl” movie star Shanti Priya (Deepika Padukone). Alas, Shanti Priya has only eyes for film producer and evil con man Mukesh Mehra (Arjun Rampal). As a result of Mukesh Mehra’s machinations, Om Prakash Makhija and Shanti Priya are packed off to their makers just before the interval.

But like the proverbial bad penny, Shahrukh Khan and Deepika Padukone reappear after the intermission only to torment us mercilessly till the end mercifuly creeps up on us.

Shahrukh Khan and Deepika Padukone lack the screen chemistry of Shahrukh Khan-Kajol in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge or Shahrukh Khan-Madhuri Dixit in Dil To Pagal Hai.

Also, newcomer Deepika Padukone doesn’t set the screen afire. In not one scene did we find this young lass’ presence on screen bewitching or convincing. If talent was the only consideration, Deepika Padukone wouldn’t have made it for a crowd scene. But such are the quirks of Bollywood that buff bubbleheads wrapped in a pretty package sometimes occupy center stage.

The first half of Om Shanti Om is more tolerable than the second, which is plain rubbish. Even some of the audience at the Loehmann’s Twin Cinemas (Falls Church, Virginia) at the Premiere show on Thursday night became so restless during the second half that they started talking on their cell phones and began moving about.

The much ballyhooed Deewangi Deewangi song featuring 31 stars is nothing to write home about. In a gazillion Hindi movie, we have seen such graceless foot-stomping. The only difference here is that the foot-stomping and wild gyrations masquerading for dancing was performed by recognizable faces. So what?

But the booby prize for the worst choreographed song in our memory must surely go to Dard-e-Disco. In an industry where decent dancing is de rigeur, it’s a mystery as to how Shahrukh Khan has gotten away with such bad steps for so many years.

The last song in Om Shanti Om Dastaan E is one of the better songs.

One of the well-done comical scenes in Om Shanti Om is the garish spoof of Tamil movies. We found it absolutely hilarious and laughed till tears rolled down our cheeks.

All in all, Om Shanti Om is a remorseless Diwali dampener.

Neither the story nor the acting or music make Om Shanti Om a must-watch movie. Skip it without any qualms.

Oh well, even Bollywood superstars like Shahrukh Khan are mere mortals and when you look closely enough many of them have feet of clay beneath all that swagger.