Fireflies, a film by a debutant director Sabal Singh Shekhawat, is an offbeat movie. The concepts of broken relationships, misunderstandings, passion, extra-marital relationships, getting back to past flames, free spirits to live, the philosophies of a life are all projected in this movie. But somewhere, the whole plot gets lost due to very slow tempo, loosely connected sequences, and also due to pitch of the dialogues being lower than that of the background music at times.

The movie begins with the narration of Manda who introduces Shiv (Rahul Khanna) and Rana (Arjun Mathur) as her brothers. The opening scene has all three of them trying to catch and play with fireflies. Shiv and Rana are not in good terms with each other due to a misunderstanding in regard to a critical incident which happened in the past. Shiv is an IIM product and a successful investment banker, whereas Rana, in spite of being a law graduate, does odd jobs viz. that of mechanic or bartender etc. Shiv is married to a wealthy girl Maya (Aadya Bedi), but also gets into secret relationship with his ex-flame Sharmila (Shivani Ghai) when they bumped into each other after a long gap. On the other side Rana gets into a relationship with free-spirited writer Michelle (Monica Dogra) who comes to taste wine while he was in his job as a bartender.

Later, both Shiv and Rana lose their love in different manner. That is when they again come back to their roots. Are they able to sort out the differences? Are they able to forego the past and move on in life? Where is Manda? What happens to Shiv’s marriage?

What was the whole concept of this movie? Was it to explore the estranged brother’s journey to escape from each other in their own manner? Or, it was to project brothers’ different paths. What played fireflies in their lives - Instant gratification, success, wealth, love, passion, lust…? Was the motto all about projecting disintegrated relationships?

A philosophy of life is discussed: If one gets lost, still, he / she must keep walking. The world is round, and one would definitely find his / her way.

Fireflies deserved a treatment which could have given this movie much more clarity, depth and intensity.