Veer Zaara: a tried and tested tale

Boy meets girl. Boy saves girl's life. Boy and girl fall in love and dance in meadows of yellow daisies. Girl is already engaged. Put these elements together to get a traditional Yash Chopra romantic film. Stick in a twist – boy is from India, girl is from Pakistan – to get a tragic love story in which the boy gets thrown in a Pakistani jail for 22 years.

Chopra returns seven years after the success of his last film, Dil To Pagal Hai (1997) to direct Veer Zaara, a cross-border romance that strives to be different but fails. The movie is a take on Romeo and Juliet, replacing interfamily tension with the tension between neighboring countries. However, Veer Zaara's intention is not to bash either country – there isn't a single raised voice in the film. Forget bloodshed and violence; Chopra focuses on the bonds of love between parent and child, man and woman, Indian and Pakistani.

The film opens with Saamiya Siddiqui (Rani Mukherji), a Pakistani lawyer, visiting her client, an Indian man who has sat silently in a Pakistani jail for the past 22 years. She is a woman setting foot into a male-dominated court for the first time, and for this reason, she has been assigned one of the hardest cases on hand. After all, she can't possibly help a man who refuses to speak.

However, Siddiqui achieves what the Pakistani jailers cannot – she gets the man to tell his story. Chopra uses flashbacks to string past memories along the clothesline of the present, eventually merging the two story lines into one, a technique that debuted in Mani Ratnam's Saathiya (2002).

Zaara Hayaat Khan (Preity Zinta), a spirited Pakistani girl raised in a man's world, sets out to India to fulfill her nanny's dying wish – to have her ashes immersed in the holy waters in Kiritpur – only to meet with a bus crash. Squadron Leader Veer Pratap Sing (Shahrukh Khan) of the Indian Air Force saves her and subsequently accompanies Zaara to her destination to deliver her safely. Numerous song-and-dance sequences composed by the late Madan Mohan worm their way into the plot in the first hour. The music hearkens back to the classic songs of the 70s and 80s, a pleasant change from the oftentimes trashy songs released in Bollywood nowadays. While colorful and entertaining, these sequences only interrupt the movie's flow.

Eventually, the story gets back to the usual – boy loves girl but is unsure of her feelings. Veer falls head-over-heels in love but is forced to part with Zaara after just two days together. He drops Zaara off at the train station, where she is met by none other than her fiancé, Raza Shirazi (Manoj Bajpai). Once back home, Zaara is plagued by Veer's confession of his feelings while her family prepares for her wedding, which was arranged as a pact between the Khan and Shirazi families.

Of course, Veer can't just sit by and watch Zaara get married off. He follows her to Pakistan to hear her feelings, ready to rescue her from the wedding if need be. Unfortunately, Raza, the rejected husband-to-be, is not so complying. He has Veer thrown in jail, where Veer stays without saying a word until Siddiqui shows up.

Mukherji delivers her lines with passion, doing justice to her character's compassion and humanity. Shahrukh is in true form – he's played the love-struck hero often enough for the part to come naturally. More striking is the older version of his character in the latter half of the film: With long, wild hair streaked gray, a wrinkle-lined face and a hobbling walk, Shahrukh truly looks the part of an exhausted 50-some-year-old man. He and Zinta share a warm chemistry on screen.

To be fair, Veer Zaara does offer more than just an enduring love story fraught with difficulties. The characters are faced with the challenges of a courtroom and deal with such modern issues as country rivalry and a male-dominated society. The dark, damp jail scenes rank among the best in the movie, due in part to their originality and the fresh look they bring to the film.

While the story itself doesn't offer anything radically different, the film is a heart-warming tale just in time for the Indian New Year. After all, Veer and Zaara's love blossomed over three days and withstood 22 years of obstacles and hardship. The movie may not be worth $10 at the theater, but suckers for romantic love stories should definitely rent the DVD when it comes out – they won't regret it.

This film is not rated because Indian movies are not subject to the MPAA.

The film is running at Laurel Six Cinemas at the Laurel Shopping Center (301-604-2886) and Loehman's Twin Cinemas in Falls Church, VA (703-573-8593). Please call to confirm show times.