Alia slays with her performance in this thriller Raazi

Director: Meghna Gulzar Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vicky Kaushal, Soni Razdan, Jaideep Ahlawat, Rajit Kapur, Shishir Sharma, Arif Zakaria Director Meghna Gulzar’s Raazi based on Harinder S. Sikka’s novel, Calling Sehmat is not a conventional espionage thriller, but it does depend upon surprises, thrilling moments and unexpected revelation of characters and they grow naturally out of the story.

Set in the early 1970s just before the India-Pakistan war and inspired from real events, Raazi is the tale of a Kashmiri girl, Sehmat Khan (Alia Bhatt) whose life changes after she gets to know her dying father’s last wish. As a dutiful daughter, she can do little but surrender to his passion and patriotism and follow the path he has so planned for her.

So from an ordinary, college-going girl she is trained by an Indian intelligence agent Khalid Mir ( Jaideep Ahlawat) to become a deadly spy. She is then married off to Iqbal Syed (Vicky Kaushal), the son of the well-connected Pakistani Brigadier Parvez Syed (Shishir Sharma) and her mission is to regularly pass information to the Indian intelligence.

How Sehmat survives her stint in Pakistan, forms the crux of the tale.

With perfect infusion of sentiments in a gripping plot, the story touches one’s heart especially because of Alia Bhatt’s power-packed performance. In an authorbacked role, she is natural