Raazi

The starting portions of Raazi made me feel like am I in for another glorified tale about patriotism? But luckily that wasn’t the case with Meghna Gulzar’s Raazi. Even though it started off with a patriotic theme, the struggle it ultimately shows us is the one fought by some people who weren’t officially acknowledged for their contributions. Raazi successfully depicts the struggle of a vulnerable woman who had to go through extremely tough situations on an emotional level.

Hidayat Khan has always helped the Indian Intelligence by providing valuable information. During the 1971 war India needed his service as he himself found out that some massive planning is happening in Pakistan. When he became unsure about whether he could discover it as his health was decaying, the patriot decides to pass the baton to his daughter Sehmat. Sehmat agreed to marry a Pakistani military officer to do her duty and Raazi is showing us the emotional turmoil through which Sehmat had to go through in that whole process.

Thriller won’t be the perfect way to describe this movie. Even though we get nervous seeing what Sehmat does in the movie, ultimately it’s an empathy that we feel for her. Meghna Gulzar knows the fact that audiences are intelligent enough to understand what could be the end result of the mission and therefore the focus is rightly on the emotional aspect. Sehmat is building a reputation in her husband’s home and what she has to do after a point demands a thick skin and from whatever we have seen we know that this isn’t easy for that girl. And there is no animosity towards Pakistan to channel it as a patriotic film.

In Jolly LLB 2 Sourabh Shukla’s character has said that there is something charismatic in the performance of Alia Bhatt and I agree to that completely. She has this amazing honesty in portraying characters. And here we are seeing a huge arc of the character from being a really innocent college student to a trained spy who agrees to become someone’s wife for the sake of her country. Like I said earlier, the moments that depict the vulnerable side of this character are the key points in this movie and Alia delivers an impeccable performance in those areas. Vicky Kaushal is that gentleman Pakistani officer and it was largely towards the end of the film he gets a chance to show his skills and he was really good in expressing the conflict inside his head. Jaideep Ahlawat as the IB officer was impressive. Rajit Kapur was convincing as Hidayat Khan and so were Shishir Sharma and Ashwath Bhatt.

Meghna Gulzar knows to keep it tidy and minimal. After certain initial hiccups, she tightens the script with fewer explanations. Compared to her last directorial Talvar, the drama quotient in the movie is slightly high. The loudness to which the movie occasionally slips into is perhaps the only negative I could feel. Meghna manages to get a very controlled performance from her actors and the making has the grip over the content. The intensity of situations and the tension in scenes were maintained really well. The cinematography of the movie captures the tension impressively. Cuts were precise. The music was in blend with the tempo of the movie.

Raazi is a performance driven drama that sheds light on the life of a spy. It doesn’t have that desperation to make it look like a patriotic film and follow the current trend. Instead, it shows a woman’s conflicted life with sincerity.

Rating: 3.5/5.