Love, in real life, is rarely as all-out sweet and high-minded and uplifting as it is in the movies, and the last thing you expect is two blueblood Bollywood newcomers to service this nihilistic notion of romance – but that’s what Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor (making confident debuts as Raj and Sakina) do in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariya.

“Saawariya” announces itself as an adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s “White Nights,” but whatever Russian soul may dwell deep within it is pretty well drowned in Bollywood style. Eye and ear candy for fans of Indian musical cinema, it is 2 hours 11 minutes — bracingly compact by Bollywood standards — of wide-screen close-ups, fanciful sets, colorful costumes, bellybuttons, almost-kisses and 10 pumped-up, achingly sweet songs.

Saawariya is a romantic fairy tale about unrequited love. Much has been made of the fact this film, based on Dostoevsky's short story, White Nights, is a co-production between Hollywood and Bollywood. Less has been said about how very slow it is.

A prostitute named Gulabji (Rani Mukerji) narrates the beginning of the story, which is set in a magical, make-believe place. Enter Raj (Ranbir Kapoor), a musician, who wanders into the fantasy town to become a singer in a club. Raj is funny, naive and entertaining, and his presence cheers everyone he meets. Gulabji, against her own better judgement, falls in love with him.

This work of art doesn't have the in-your-face flamboyance of "Devdas" or "Black" where almost every shot reached a crescendo, every passion peaked like a mid-summer sun, and every movement denoted drama. But "Saawariya" is Sanjay Leela Bhansali's most tender ode to love yet.

Taking Fyodor Dostoevsky's minuscule play "White Nights", Bhansali has built huge but unimposing emotions classified by dollops of awe-inspiring studio-erected architecture that represents feelings rather than physical forms.

Irrespective of how his films fare at the box-office, you cannot shut your eyes to the fact that Sanjay Leela Bhansali's films have so much to offer in terms of style and substance.

Alas, SAAWARIYA is all style, no substance. When a director of the calibre of SLB attempts a love story, you expect to experience the various emotions that you generally associate with romance. Sadly, the emotions you experience while watching SAAWARIYA is sorrow and after the screening, anguish.