Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi, a cutesy love story of two over-the-hill — and overgrown — Parsi people is a lot like their food. Only it doesn’t taste that good all the time.

Have you had Sali Boti? It’s like this spicy mutton gravy piled on top with alu bhaja! Or the more popular delicacy Dhansak? It’s also about cubed meat but this time plunged in lots of dal!

Bela Bhansali Sehgal’s debut feature has this weird analogy with Parsi cuisine. It’s actually something which wants to be something else. For all of its two hours of running time, the film swings between being a quaint love story and wanting to be a big romance.

If you quickly recount the best of Parsi films, from Khatta Meetha to Pestonjee to the more recent Being Cyrus, the canvas is usually restricted because the dreams, desires and demons of most of the people of the community, we are told, are restrained. If their filmi representation is right, they are honest, hard-working, fun-loving family folk sipping on their raspberry drink and driving their vintage vehicles.

Shirin Farhad populates its world with such people but the love story at the centre strays every now and then to wear that oversized Bollywood wig. The quirky charm is lost and the epic proportions never reached, often leaving the film lost somewhere in the middle.

Boman Irani plays Farhad Pastakia, who was an eligible bachelor within the Parsi community till the other day but now at 45, the head salesman at Tem Tem’s bra and panty shop is struggling to find a bride. His mother (Daisy Irani) wants to get him married off but also wants almost all of his time.

Farah Khan plays Shirin Fugawala, the secretary of the local Parsi Trust, who is 40, unmarried and lives with her comatose father and unmarried aunt.

“Par pyaar ki koi expiry date nahin hoti.”

So, the two oddball leads would soon fall in love after a tu-tu-main-main over her correct bra size. The romance wouldn’t be that bodacious, but smooth all the same. The trouble would emerge from the tooti hui tanki which Farhad’s father had made for Mummy and which Shirin finds out to be illegal.

After quite a flaccid first half, things gain some momentum in the second hour when the Farhad-Shirin coming together is actually threatened and there is a hint of drama in the proceedings. You know how it’s going to all end but you don’t mind going through those last few high-octane scenes.

In her first film, Bela Sehgal, who has been trying to put a film together for more than a decade now, doesn’t show a self-assured directorial swipe. She tries a bit of this and a bit of that and is often all over the place. While the script (co-written by brother and producer Sanjay Leela Bhansali), is a bit too tame for its own good, Bela’s loud flourishes look jarring and out of place.

What’s most disappointing is that she makes a mess of the songs. Having first arrived as the director of those eye-catching Adnan Sami music videos, Bela shows little imagination in the song picturisations. Incredibly, Jeet Gannguli’s tracks looked and sounded so much better in their original Bengali versions in Chirodini... Tumi Je Aamar!

That brings us to the two leads. It’s not the first time Boman’s playing a Parsi on screen. He was so good in Being Cyrus and equally brilliant in Little Zizou. Here he is a bit on the backfoot but really comes into his own in the last emotional upheaval.

Choreographer-director Farah Khan’s matter-of-fact body language and nonchalant dialogue delivery go well with the Parsi persona, even though you mostly feel you are just watching the Main Hoon Naa director and not Shirin. Her dance shots are a big letdown though, as you expect Farah the choreographer to burn the screen with her moves and that hardly happens.

The best thing about Shirin Farhad is that it’s a film about outsiders, not the six-packed silicon-pumped sexy things we are used to root and cheer for at the movies. That may not be enough for you to spend two hours with Farhad and Shirin. The mouthwatering brun maska notwithstanding.