The film is set in 1971 where an Indian intelligence official lays out a scheme to send his daughter, Alia Bhatt , a college girl to Pakistan and help to find out wartime secrets. Director Meghna Gulzar brings a true-life murder case that was brave enough to take a stand and its delicacy isn’t surprising.
Raazi is based on Calling Sehmat, Harinder Sikka’s novel on a spy turned daughter-in-law of an opposing spy. The father calls out her daughter from the college and sends her off to get training before she steps into the next plan of action.
Alia portrays more than required , emotion for visibility than feeling. The film has some serious scenes with solid beats, with officious gents opening files and discussing submarines, and then we have Sehmat, who suffixes every narrow escape with moist-eyed shock – an indiscreet reaction that would be sure to raise an eyebrow.
Sehmat tries to win over and fit into her husband , Vicky Kaushal’s house and spy at the same time. What doesn’t quite fit in is that nobody in this Pakistani family, a family of army-men and decoders of intelligence, ever thinks to suspect the Indian girl in their midst. The film is carefully crafter but not gripping. The film feels a little slow as the stakes feel frantic but unreal.
At the end, the film gives little information on the spies’ feelings, spies get sappy, spies cry. The films’ song, Ae Vatan is carefully put in the narrative .
