During the 70s and 80s, Bollywood consistently churned out films wherein the poor hero fell in love with a rich heiress and was promptly told his aukaat by a parent of the heiress, leading to much tears and a struggle to be reunited with the lady of his dreams. Abhishek Kapoor, who had last helmed Kai Po Che, takes Charles Dickens' classic novel 'Great Expectations' to come up with something similar, albeit in a glossy format.

Kashmir wrapped around in a blanket of snow makes for a gorgeous Gothic setting for Fitoor to unravel. As the camera gently strokes the exquisite emptiness typical of snow covered landscapes, we have already entered Noor's world who's a boy of about 10 or 12 at the time, in the middle of a strange encounter with a fierce looking man.

'Fitoor' had all the ingredients to make it a grand love story to be remembered. Stunningly beautiful backdrop of Kashmir, a premise for a passionate love story and of course some mesmerising moments. But only if those moments were strung together with a lot more confident execution and little less confusion in the script, this could have been a far better film.

Great Expectations, indeed! If you happened to have read Charles Dickens' bildungsroman, then you would know how a young boy travels through time to become a handsome man-his journey is full of ups and down and it is his immense 'love' which overpowers all his desires and aspirations.

So, Fitoor, based on Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, meets some expectations - but not all. In a Kashmir of moonlit snows, mist-filled houses and golden leaves, Noor (Aditya) falls in love with Firdaus (Katrina), daughter of eccentric Begum Hazrat (Tabu), who lives, covered in diamonds, in a castle of chandeliers and chintz.

Abhishek Kapoor set himself a tough task when he decided to adapt Great Expectations for a Hindi film. His chosen text is the most challenging of Charles Dickens' classics: it is dreary, gloomy and depressing despite the final crumb offered in the form of a happy ending. The original is the story of the wealthy Miss Havisham who is so shattered when her groom does not turn up for their wedding, that from that day forward she remains dressed in her bridal finery, keeps her home decorated as it was for the celebrations and lets her wedding cake lie rotting on her dining table.

Noor (Aditya Roy Kapur) loves Firdaus (Katrina Kaif) but has never been able to quite express himself. He meets the lady after years and discovers that the intensity of his feelings have not reduced and she plays along. What would you expect a Bollywood hero to do? Confess love and deliver some high-octane dramatic dialogues? That's not what you get in Abhishek Kapoor's Fitoor. Our protagonist Noor, looks at his ladylove with such intensity, is nervous around her in a cute way and acts much like a teenager around his crush. Relatable much?

Fitoor has to be one of the most enchanting films to look at, in a long time. But this great looking film that captures the surreal beauty of Kashmir does not live up to the great expectations attached with it. The source material, the classic novel by Charles Dickens lends good matter to the story, but a lot is lost in adaptation. The script is the weakest part of Fitoor.

A small Kashmiri boy with innocent eyes and a Salim Sinai nose becomes a natural artist but, as if working with unreasonably heavy paintbrushes, emerges also a musclebound dimwit. A haughty young girl with a National Velvet self-confidence morphs into a red-haired waxwork unable to pronounce words that came so naturally in her youth.

Noor (Aditya Roy Kapur) is a young Shikara boy from Kashmir who lives with his elder sister and her husband. The innocent lad is born artist who sketches and soon finds his perfect muse in Firdaus (Katrina Kaif). She is beautiful enough to be a heartbreaker and it takes no time for little Noor to fall in love with her.

Centuries ago, Amir Khusro had said 'Gar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast / hameen-ast-o, hameen-ast-o hameen-ast.' Roughly translated to English, the couplet means 'If there's a paradise on earth / It is here, it is here, it is here.' Emperor Jehangir then immortalised these two lines when Kashmir struck him numb and made him blurt them out, almost involuntarily.

A visual tour de force, Abhishek Kapoor's exquisitely crafted Fitoor holds on to the soul of Great Expectations and imbues it with the spirit of Bollywood without letting the essence of one dilute that of the other. But that is not to say that Fitoor is an unblemished miracle. It isn't. Halfway into the first half, an impressed art impresario lauds the male protagonist's work, but she hastens to tell him that it needs "presentation, scale and context".

'Inspiration' Charles Dickens is just the first casualty. Fitoor spares no one, not Kashmir, not Delhi, not London, not Kashmiris, and not even poor Pakistan, which somehow finds its way into this tale essentially about love traversing social divides. Meanwhile, having decided that in a film where all of Aditya Roy Kapoor's hair is bunched upon his head and all of Katrina's is plunged in a Chinar-esque red, in the hope perhaps that you don't notice their blank faces below, Tabu takes it upon herself to act for the entire film.

FITOOR starts off with with the flashback that reflects the childhood of a young Kashmiri boy Noor Nizami and his 'blink-and-you-miss' tryst with a random stranger (Ajay Devgn), who turns out to be a certain Mirza Baig eventually. One of the days, when Noor accompanies his brother-in-law to Begam (Tabu)'s palace for some carpentry work, his young and innocent eyes fall on the eternally beautiful Firdaus Jaan Naqvi.