‘Ulajh’ review: A competent but unremarkable spy thriller

White House Counsel Lionel Tribbey is arguing with new staffer Ainsley Hayes about Gilbert and Sullivan. “It's from Penzance or Iolanthe... one of the ones about duty,” he says. “They’re all about duty,” she replies. I was reminded of this exchange from The West Wing during my viewing of Sudhanshu Saria’s Ulajh. The national anthem—which was quietly excised from the Delhi theatre experience after the pandemic—played before the film, and it seemed fitting that a film that fixates on patriotic duty would mark its return. Then I remembered: nowadays they’re all about duty. 

This isn’t to say Ulajh is a rabidly, or even stridently, nationalistic film. Instead, it muddies the waters somewhat. Saria and co-writers Parveez Shaikh and Atika Chohan suspend their characters between duty, morality and self-interest. There are beats you’d expect from an Indian spy film—how could there not be a military coup brewing in Pakistan?—but also unexpected ones that reflect more honestly the complicated levers of cross-border relations.

Ulajh is equally a film about the weight of family. After she saves a dire situation with Nepal, Indian Foreign Services officer Suhana (Janhvi Kapoor) is fast-tracked to the position of Deputy High Commissioner to the UK. Since her father is a high-ranking diplomat (as was his father), she’s seen by many—including her London colleagues Jacob (Meiyang Chang) and Sebin (Roshan Mathew)—as a nepotistic hire. She also has a complicated relationship with her father (Adil Hussain), who doles out advice but not approval. This is a fairly unsubtle line of metatextual storytelling, given that the lead is the daughter of Sridevi and Boney Kapoor, and has been saddled with the same accusations from the day she began acting. The film repeats what has become the standard answer from star kids—nepotism exists but it isn’t helpful beyond a point and besides, I work very hard.

(mild spoilers)

Almost immediately upon arrival in London, Suhana meets Nakul (Gulshan Devaiah), a ‘Michelin-starred’ chef with about seven weird accents. They hit it off, and spend the night together. It’s rarely good news in a Hindi film when a relationship—even a fling—progresses this quickly. Not a huge shock, then, that Nakul turns up with a video of their encounter, and starts blackmailing Suhana for state secrets. 

Ulajh never loses sight of the fact that Suhana’s training is as a diplomat, not a spy. Her attempts at throwing off Nakul and, eventually, at espionage are clumsy (compare this to Sehmat in Raazi, another young woman in an equally precarious situation, but whose skills made her formidable). It’s notable that Suhana is almost as worried about her family’s reputation and her father’s UN posting as she is about her own career and the nation. It makes her actions less sensible than they might have been, but also gives her a clear, tangible motivation (“What happened to me was personal!” she snaps when Sebin urges her to put emotion aside).

Janhvi Kapoor isn’t an actor who’s fascinating from moment to moment, like Alia Bhatt or Kangana Ranaut in the 2010s. What she does seem to have is a clear idea of her strengths and capabilities. She’s played, in several films and with increasing confidence, a particular character type: unflashy, resourceful, thrust into a battle with overwhelming odds. You can see variations on this in Gunjan Saxena, Good Luck Jerry, Mili, Mr And Mrs Mahi and Ulajh. The performances are measured and often overshadowed by supporting turns—as she is here by Mathew’s grumpy subordinate (Devaiah is amusing but tonally confusing). But at the very least it feels like a career being forged, rather than a haphazard bid for stardom.

A series of twists keeps Ulajh ticking over, and a last-act return to home soil is helpful. Yet, there’s nothing about Saria’s film that marks it out as unique, even within the genre. Raazi had a love of language, Berlin a Cold War dourness. Even Khufiya, which falls apart spectacularly, has a sensuous charge. Ulajh, even in its best moments, feels like an also-ran. I was annoyed when, right at the end, the film attempts to will a sequel into being. It seems to me wishful thinking that this could be a franchise; all it does is tack on an inelegant ending. It’s an unfortunate trend that will undo better films than Ulajh.  

Also read: The Naipauls of Nepaul Street: The freedom of a chosen home