Raazi

 

A daughter. A wife. A spy.

The film is an adaptation of Harinder Sikka's 2008 novel Calling Sehmat, a true account of an Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) agent who, upon her father's request, is married into a family of military officials in Pakistan to relay information to India, prior to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

Last week after referencing Raazi in the Sarvam Thaala Mayam review, I was stunned to see that I never mentioned it here. So let's make up for that now, shall we?

It's a riveting spy thriller with nuanced screenplay and performances. We were on the edge of our seats.

It also introduced us to a time in Indian history which helped explain a lot of the attitude toward Pakistan which we've seen in other movies, so that prompted us to go look up events surrounding this time period. So it was educational as well. It was also our introduction to Alia Bhatt who is very talented.

Simply excellent.

Rating — Introduction to Bollywood (come on in, the water's fine!)