metacritic.com: Saawariya

Saawariya

Starring Salman Khan, Rani Mukherjee, Ranbir Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor, and Zohra Sehgal

MPAA RATING: PG for thematic elements, brief nudity, some language and incidental smoking

Columbia Pictures
Drama | Musical | Romance
140 minutes | Color
India
Released In Theaters November 9, 2007

Saawariya is a timeless story of two young, star-crossed lovers whose passions almost consume their will to the brink of self-destruction. In this eternal ode to romance stand two lonely souls whose childlike innocence and candor only obscures their inner turmoil, anger, anxiety, and desperate longing for love. An artist, free spirit, idealist, and dreamer, Raj is certain that he has found his ultimate dream when he arrives in a quaint, picturesque town. It's a place surrounded by mountains, shrouded in mist, and enveloped in beauty, mythical enough to be a painter's vision or a poet's memory. However, destiny paints a different picture for Raj. One silent bright and starry night, he spots a mysterious girl draped in black, standing alone at a bridge. This chance encounter introduces him to Sakina, a shy and quiet, melancholic and enigmatic girl who intrigues him. Thus follows the beginning of a new friendship, where Raj with his most-charming ways and an undying spirit tries to win Sakina's heart. Raj is unable to accept her haunting past, and their friendship pulls him into a whirlwind of desire, madness, and romance. (Sony)

WRITTEN BY
Prakash Kapadia

DIRECTED BY
Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

44 / 100

Critic Reviews

60	The New York Times A.O. Scott The experience is visually enchanting, cloyingly sweet, at once utterly chaste and insanely erotic, and finally exhausting. Aficionados will not settle for less.
60	Variety Derek Elley A really small movie done up in a big, moody package, Saawariya entices, fitfully springs to life but finally outstays its welcome by a good half-hour.
50	TV Guide Maitland McDonagh The first full-fledged Indian musical coproduced and distributed by a major Hollywood studio, this fanciful love story takes its unlikely inspiration from Fyodor Dostoevsky's short story "White Nights."
50	The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt It's overblown and extravagant business as usual.
40	Village Voice Abigail Deutsch See this movie if you need to get some sleep.
25	New York Post V.A. Musetto How can it be that a movie as beautiful to look at as Saawariya is so . . . boring?

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