Sari review: KS Ashoka presents faithful remake of his Dia, but it lacks soul

2/5

Story: Engineering student Dia Swaroop (Ritika Shrotri) falls head-over-heels in love with 1st year MTech student Rohit (Ajinkya Raut), but the shy introvert that she is, she is not able to tell him how she feels. And when she musters the courage to finally open up to him, he leaves the college having found a job in Korea. But as fate would have it, Dia runs into Rohit later in Mangaluru, and finally finds out that he too had feelings for her. When the lovebirds then make plans to talk to their folks and take the relationship to the next level, they meet with an accident, in which Rohit dies.

Devastated by her loss, Dia slips into depression, which her folks hope will get better with a change of scene, so they send her to Pune, where, under strange circumstances she meets the live-wire Adi (Pruthvi), who slowly and steadily gets Dia back on track. But is a happily-ever-after on the cards for Dia?

Review: Sari is the third time that director KS Ashoka has directed the same film. He first made Dia in Kannada, which opened in theatres just before the pandemic, and later become a hit on OTT, giving its three lead actors – Dheekshith Shetty, Kushee Ravi and Pruthvi – a good break in the industry. Then Ashoka remade it in Hindi, taking Pruthvi along to reprise the role of Adi. Now comes Sari, the Marathi version, which, yet again has Pruthvi too. The film released in theatres in early May and has now dropped on OTT, so we decided to check out how it fares in comparison to the original.

The sad reality is that although Sari is an almost scene-by-scene remake of the original, it is not half as good a watch. Call me biased, but the Kannada original was far more appealing and tugged at one’s heartstrings. This just didn’t cut it, even though, Pruthvi continues to be as earnest and endearing as Adi, as he was in the first film. It is surprising that director Ashoka let Ritika Shrotri’s wide-eyed and otherwise expressionless reaction slide multiple times in the course of the narrative. Ajinkya Raut debut just about passes muster.

The thing about KS Ashoka’s story is that it is a heart-warming tale that will leave you teary-eyed, not only with the love triangle at play, but also the cute mother-son sentiment between Pruthvi and Mrinal Kulkarni. The fact that this was a love story told from the perspective of the heroine, who has not one but two trysts with romance, was refreshing. When the Kannada original came, its lead actors were all debutants in cinema, but they brought a certain freshness and charm to the screen. Sari’s failing is in its cast – Ashoka got only half of it right and that was not enough to salvage this version.

Verdict: The Kannada original Dia is available on Amazon Prime Video with English subtitles. So, if you are not hung up about language, watch that one instead of Sari.