One ring to rule them all.

 Despite the title, Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017) has nothing to do with When Harry Met Sally.  If anything, it owes a debt to It Happened One Night, because this is a Bollywood road trip movie.  It's a popular formula; two people are forced by strange circumstances to travel together, usually across India or Europe as represented by one ton in Switzerland.  At first they don't get along, then they do get along, then they're in love and it's time to return home and face whatever obstacles are keeping them apart, whether that means a violent fiance with gang connections or an angry father played by Amrish Puri.  But what if nobody was standing between them?

Harinder Singh Nehra (Shah Rukh Khan) was once a farmer in a small village in Punjab, but now he's Harry, a tour guide making a circuit of the stately capitals of Europe.  It is immediately clear from the opening montage that beneath his practiced patter and massive reserves of personal charm, Harry is absolutely miserable, but he carries on, spending his time between trips with his only friend Mayank (Aru Krishansh Verma), as well as a rotating cast of short term girlfriends.

After sending the latest tour group on their way home, Harry is stopped by Sejal (Anushka Sharma), one of the group members.  She explains that she became engaged to her boyfriend Rupen (Kavi Shastri) on the trip, and she has lost the ring.  It's a treasured heirloom in Rupen's family, they've already fought, and she has to find it soon.

Harry does not want to help; he's supposed to be enjoying some time off, and he's been fired before for romancing the clients so he doesn't want to risk anything.  Sejal is really bossy though, and her parents pulled some strings with the tour company, so Harry is on ringfinding duty for the time being.

So Harry and Sejal retrace the tour, starting in Amsterdam and moving on to Prague and beyond.  And they argue a lot, but they've both got excellent "antagonistic banter which grows progressively more flirtatious as time goes on " skills, and after a run-in with some gangsters in Prague they start to open up to one another.

Sejal can tell that Harry is lonely, and invites him to consider her his girlfriend while they're looking for the ring together.  Harry knows that's a terrible idea, and tells her so, but Sejal assures him that she's not the kind of girl who would leave her fiance for a tourist guide.  Then she dares him to turn on the charm while reenacting the moment she thinks she lost the ring, not reckoning with the fact that Harry is played by Shah Rukh Freaking Khan, with all the prodigious charm reserves that implies.  

The adventures continue.  At this point Harry is in love with Sejal but determined to control his emotions, and Sejal is starting to realize that she loves Harry as well.  They have a run in with a different set of gangsters, led by Gas (Chandan Roy Sanyal), during which Sejal finds the ring.  And decides not to tell Harry about it, instead dragging him to Frankfurt so they can represent the groom's side at Mayank's wedding.  Mayank and his new German wife Irina (Evelyn Sharma) notice the obvious chemistry between the two, but Harry and Sejal explain that they're both happier than they've ever been, but it's not real and every vacation ends.

And that seems to be that.  After one last fight, Sejal reveals the ring, Harry books her a flight, and she goes home to get married, while Harry goes back to work.  Will they see each other again?  Will they get a chance to declare their feelings?  This is a Bollywood romance, so the answer is obviously yes, but probably not in the way you're expecting.

Amrish Puri isn't in this movie.  There's no angry father with a small army of thugs, and no physically imposing boyfriend to stand in the way.  (Rupen is kind of a jerk, but in an ordinary way, and he barely gets any screentime.)  Harry and Sejal can't be together because Harry and Sejal don't want to admit their feelings, because they're afraid. Once again this is a problem that can be solved by five minutes of conversation, so the solution is to have that five minutes of conversation.  Then kiss.  And then an awkward thumbs up.

The plotline here is classic Bollywood, but the presentation isn't.  This is a romance and a moody character piece, and Shah Rukh gives an unusually nuanced and restrained performance.  Harry and Sejal aren't looking for love, they're just looking for a way home.  And eventually they find it.