Salaam-e-Ishq is not a film to be seen with the snotty multiplex crowd who will let their ringtones drive you to distraction, but will play singularly dead when it comes to reacting to anything up there on the screen....

This is a film for the single screen audiences who like their stories served up larger than life and as sumptuous as you can make them. And Salaam-e-Ishq trawls all possible nuances of love in luxurious colours. Not being privy to Richard Curtis' Love Actually, down in the Rs 40 stalls, they love the intensely Indian avatar of it.

The film follows six couples…at different points in their lives...looking for love, escaping from it, trying to understand it…holding on to it. The one thing you might have a gripe with is why Nikhil Advani chose to jump in at the deep end by trying to tackle six love stories instead of one.

There's a reason for it: he had truly surprised you with his first outing as a director. Kal Ho Na Ho could have drowned under the weight of its maudlin premise but the incredible command Advani had over the narrative - the crisp cuts, the way scenes were sprung on you in a 100 novel ways…gave the film a scintillating contemporary feel but Karan Johar walked away with much of the credit…and Advani pretty much got wallpapered over. So, this time, with somewhat uncharacteristic bravado, he decided to put all his skills on display.

To confess - one did approach the film with some trepidation. Was the man trying to self-destruct in his attempt at proving a point to Dharma Productions? But Advani has put his exceptional directorial skills to good use. He kicks in a whole range of editing and narrative devices - that act as flyovers and under passes over which the film careens full speed ahead… suffused with all the chaos love holds. You're ducking down, waiting for a huge crash and pile up - but it doesn't happen…their worlds hardly ever collide…. sometimes, when Advani wants it, there's a just a gentle brushing of cheeks (the late-night scene between Anil Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra).

What draws you to the film is its cast of winsome, mostly over-the-top characters…and since it's a story with a male perspective - they're none of them pristine…men with lust on their minds and roving eyes, women who want it all…and then some, who believe in true love…. There's the aching loneliness of the married event manager (Anil Kapoor, surprisingly mature and restrained), who's looking for a new fragrance to fill up the vacuum in his life.

And the over-the-hill cabbie, parked along life's sidewalk, stubbornly waiting for true love (Govinda reined in, utterly endearing). The devilish commitment phobic dude (Akshaye Khanna playing himself?) who'll stop at nothing to get the love noose off his neck…. The intense husband (John Abraham exhibiting scalding intensity. Wish they'd had him run fewer 100m sprints after the gaunt, Gurjari attired, elusive Ms Balan). The manic Haryanvi, (Sohail Khan) who's just looking, single-mindedly, to consummate his love with his luscious young bride (Isha Koppikar)…but can't seem to get the backdrop right.

The only two major irritants in the film are Salman Khan (yet another sleepwalk and fake accent) and Priyanka Chopra who overdoes her take-off on the ambitious item girl, waiting for that one phone call from Karan Johar. Then, of course, there is The Haunting: Advani has broken out of Dharma Productions, but he still hasn't been able to shake off the Karan Johar spell. There are umpteen references to K Jo's movies…the man was even set to make a guest appearance as a big shot director.

But now that he's so big, all they could manage were badly recorded tinny-sounding phone calls from THE Karan Johar, that impress no one. Not even the avaricious item girl who finally dumps him for the dude with the fake accent....
Nikhil Advani needs to do the same. The sooner he learns to be his own man, the better he will be.