'Ulajh' movie review: Untangling this pretentious nonsense

Ulajh

Ulajh
U/A: Thriller, drama
Dir: Sudhanshu Saria
Cast: Janhvi Kapoor, Gulshan Devaiah
Rating: '1/2

I know, delusion can equal patriotism, sometimes. Especially, with movies, for what else are films, if not fantasies, first. That said, the sheer delulu around a dapperly-dressed, foreign ministry bureaucrat, carefully selecting snazzy #ootd - strutting around in her fancy apartment and office, like some US Vice President type from Veep, as TV channels go high-decibel berserk, breaking news of her getting anointed India's youngest deputy high commissioner to Britain - should warn you enough about all that's to follow in this pretentious nonsense.

Curated in the garb of an international espionage thriller! Said diplomat is a woman (Janhvi Kapoor). There's considerable workplace resentment around that. Roshan Mathew plays the main sulking colleague - given raw deal, as RAW agent. I don't know whether Roshan is only offered such parts of a pointlessly annoying, angry young man, as in this film. Or he picks them, consciously. Consider his recent, overrated, wannabe art-house, Prasanna Vithanage's Paradise (2023), where he similarly, simply groans his way through!

The guy here hates the hot-shot, female diplomat. Because? Nepotism. It's a word, for some reason, associated with Bollywood alone, popularised by actor Kangana Ranaut. Hardly ever applied to other fields, where success is even more so determined by family/pedigree. Such as the father of Janhvi's character - also, with news going on a national overdrive, because he's being sent as merely India's rep to the UN!

Her grandfather, also a diplomat, is apparently taught in India's "civics textbooks" - how that must've come to be is obviously beyond me. In fact, just looking at the completely incredulous hype around the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) - basically a professional cadre of desk jockeys, otherwise sworn to a life in the quiet background - makes you wonder, what is it that the filmmakers haven't home-worked enough?

Content on Indian news channels. The IFS itself. The global party scene on Indian tax-payers' money... If I recall right, India's foreign minister himself was once in the IFS, but before that, with Delhi Police! I do see Vikas Swarup thanked in the opening credits. He's a former diplomat, who wrote Q&A, the book that became Danny Boyle's film Slumdog Millionaire (2008). Unsure if Vikas was ever deputy high commissioner in Britain - the over-privileged role that Janhvi enters in this movie.

A good thing about parents in high places is you can always call them to steer you out of any kinda minor/major trouble. She's getting blackmailed by the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI, no less, over a moment/case so frivolous that it would take nothing to sort out. And yet, she keeps this to herself - getting buried deeper and deeper into a larger conspiracy that so escapes velocity, by way of writerly ambition, that it's impossible to retrace, where we started from, where we're headed, let alone where we shall end up with this!

So, what prompted this puerile plot? Subsidies from the UK government to shoot in London? That product placement of Pulse candies: "Pran jaaye par Pulse na jaaye" (the one piece of honest dialogue?). Or was it effectively the clock-ticking, spy-thriller genre? That the same producers, who had brilliantly pulled off Meghna Gulzar's Raazi (2018), just ordered in a story that's supposedly the reverse of it? Alia Bhatt, in any case, ought to be Janhvi's aspiration.

Adil Hussain plays Janhvi's dad. He was Sridevi's husband in English Vinglish (2012). British-Pakistani actor Aly Khan is the Indian high commissioner. Indian Gulshan Devaiah is the Pakistani spy. Meiyang Chang, Indian actor of Chinese origin, plays the RAW agent. I'm thinking of these ironies, only because there's such little else to engage your senses with, anyway.

These are also such fine actors for an ensemble cast, otherwise - minced into mild mimicry, because the movie got no meat. You observe the sound design, hence - alternating between silences, subtle drone, bass, and a shebang! You could also take restaurant recco for London, if you like. By the time we get to the end, what baffled me more than this stunning silliness is that the filmmakers are thoroughly convinced, there's also a strong sequel in this, somewhere. Hmmm… Wow.