Jaanemonth - Veer-Zaara

 It's common in Indian cinema for the titles of historical romances to be the names of the lead characters, without any pesky ampersands.  Examples include Bajirao Mastani, Jodhaa Akbar, and of course Veer-Zaara (2004), a movie set in the glamorous and distant past of 1982.

Prisoner 786 (Shah Rukh Khan) is an Indian man who has been confined to a prison in Pakistan for the last twenty two years.  Officially, his name is Rajesh Rathore, and shortly after being arrested, he signed a full confession and hasn't spoken a single word since.  Getting Prisoner 786 his freedom is the first case for newly minted lawyer Saamiya Siddiqui (Rani Mukherjee), and it already looks hopeless.  However, Saamiya does have one advantage: she knows that Prisoner 786 is really named Veer Pratap Singh.

After hearing his own name spoken after so long, Veer starts to speak.  First he talks about planes, and  his days as a rescue pilot for the Indian Air Force.  But Saamiya wants to hear the story of how Veer wound up in prison, and to tell that story, he has to start with Zaara.

Zaara Haayat Khan (Preity Zinta) is the daughter of the wealthy and respected Jehangir Haayat Khan (Boman Irani.)  She is young and carefree and convinced that nothing will ever change her, and she sings a song to that effect.  And then things start to change.  Her beloved governess Zahida (Zohra Sehgal) dies, and her last request is that Zaara take her ashes to Punjab and immerse them in the Sutlej River.  Zaara can't refuse, and she sneaks off to India, leaving her maid/sidekick Shabbo (Divya Dutta) to cover for her.

In India, Zaara's bus crashes, and she's rescued by handsome Indian Air Force rescue pilot Veer Pratap Singh.  She drops her bag during the rescue and insists on retrieving it; after they've made it to safety, Veer scolds her and stomps off.  That's not the end of the story, though; she bumps into him later, apologizes and explains that her bag contains Zahida's ashes, and Veer decides to help her on her journey so that he won't have to spend his life wondering what happened to that Pakistani girl.

After further delay and misadventure, Zaara succeeds in performing last rites for Zahida.  She asks Veer how she can ever repay him for his help, and he asks her for another day.  He takes her to his home village, introduces her to his aunt Saraswati (Hema Malini) and uncle Choudhary (Amitabh Bachchan), they celebrate Lohri, and everybody has a wonderful time and grows much closer.  It is really obvious to Choudhary that Veer loves Zaara, and he urges the younger man to confess his feelings before it's too late.

The next day, it's time for Zaara to return home to Pakistan.  Veer takes her to the train station, but before he can confess his love, they are met by Zaara's fiance, Raza (manoj Bajpal) and she quickly explains that her marriage has already been arranged.  Veer confesses his love anyway, but makes it absolutely clear that he doesn't intend to interfere with her wedding, and he goes away.

Of course Zaara loves Veer as well, and after she returns home she starts feeling his presence everywhere she looks; once again, there's a whole song about it. Shabbo can't stand to see her falling apart like this,. so she quietly contacts Veer.  He promptly leaves the Air Force (since an active officer can't visit Pakistan), crosses the border, and appears at one of the pre-wedding ceremonies.  Zaara runs to embrace him, while her husband collapses from shock.  Normally, that would be the end of the movie, but Veer-Zaara is three hours long, and there's a lot of crying still to come.

Zaara's mother Mariyam (Kirron Kher) approaches Veer and asks him to leave in order to save her husband's life (and political career, but she doesn't dwell on that.)  Veer is a noble soul, and agrees.  He talks to Zaara, and they decide to go their separate ways, live the best lives possible, and just keep loving one another hopelessly forever.  

They part, but when Veer boards the bus to take him back to India, he's arrested as a spy and dragged off to jail.  There Raza shows up to gloat, and tells Veeer that if Veer signs the confession, he'll ensure that Zaara has a blissfully happy life, but if Veer doesn't sign, he'll do everything possible to make her life hell.

Veer signs without hesitation, and becomes Prisoner 786.  The bus he was supposed to be on drives off a cliff, leaving no survivors, so as far as the world knows, Veer Pratap Singh no longer exists.  In the present Saamiya tries to convince Veer to let her get Zaara to testify, but he is a man of his word and won't do anything to risk her happiness.  Saamiya knows the case is probably lost without Zaara, but Veer is stubborn, so instead she travels to India, hoping to find someone from his village who can identify him.  She is not prepared for what she finds there.

Raza is terrible, but the real villain of Veer-Zaara is . . . okay, the real villain is still Raza.  He's the absolute worst, and he stands out even more because nearly all the other characters are so nice.  But the other real villain of Veer-Zaara is the border itself; one of the key themes of the film is that the only thing that really separates Pakistan's Punjab from India's Punjab is the border itself.  The land looks the same on both sides of the border, and the people share a culture and values, but that line on the map is enough to let Raza destroy a man's life out of spite.

One of the advertising taglines for Veer-Zaara was "A New Love Legend," and the film is definitely pitched as "grand, sweeping romantic drama."  It mostly succeeds, do ion large part to the cast; Shah Rukh is in his element here, showcasing goofy charm and teary nobility.  Preity made her name as the bubbly carefree love interest, and Zaara gives her the chance to transition form that to very much not that.  And Rani Mukherji is here to show sincerity and marvel at the noble spirits of the star-crossed lovers, and she sells sincere marveling completely.

That's not to say the movie is perfect. The script is suitably epic, but some of the plotting gets a bit muddled; the biggest unexplained plot hole is just how Saamiya knew Veer's name in the first place.  Also, the old age makeup used for present day Veer and Zaara is a bit distracting, especially since both characters are in their mid-forties at most.  But these are tiny issues.  Veer-Zaara promises grand romance, and it keeps its promises.