It is hard to say anything about this well-executed political thriller without giving away the plot. Seldom has a thriller from this side of the world kept its promise of preserving its thrills right to the end, and that too without tripping over in anxiety.
No frills, and plenty of thrills, Ulajh has plenty going for itself, in addition to giving its leading lady Janhvi Kapoor an opportunity to explore the darker side of her personality.
Considering that the film’s director Sudhanshu Saria is as much of a political novice as his protagonist Suhana Bhatia, it is a miracle that Saria has crafted such a canny controlled and well-paced political thriller.
The elegance in the narration and the perpetual twists in the plot will take you by surprise. Who would believe that Sudhanshu Saria’s earlier film LOEV didn’t even know how to spell correctly (ha ha). Saria has certainly evolved and, dare I say, matured since then.
Not that every component in Ulajh fits: it is not meant to. Life is by its very definition, chaotic. Hence the adrenaline pumping adventures of virginal bureaucrat Suhana Bhatia in London are at times so snarled, you feel she will never get out of it.
Saria generously gives his heroine a load of leeway to make a mess and then gives her an opportunity to save herself, and the country.
Ironically while one man makes a mess of muliebrity, another man helps Suhana sort it out. Both the men are played with unimpeachable conviction. Malayali actor (hate calling him that) Roshan Mathew is effective as Suhana’s scornful colleague, openly sneering about her privileged job opportunity due to her family clout.
But Gulshan Devaiah will surprise you. His character has many shades. You can see he has a lot of fun with the gun, so to speak. While lending levity to his character he never undermines its sinisterness.
The other actors notably Rajesh Tailang, Jitendra Joshi, Adil Hussain and Meiyang Chang are so convincing in their restricted space that when one of them dies suddenly, you feel you have just lost someone you know. However a couple of actors playing the Pakistani Prime Minister and the Indian Home Minister left me unconvinced.
That is not to say that Ulajh offers the comfort of the familiar. Rather it does just the opposite: the discomfort of the familiar, perhaps. All the heavy lifting responsibilities of the smooth yet spiky screenplay (Parvez Shaikh, Sudhanshu Saria) is done by Janhvi Kapoor. She is surprisingly up to the task, that personality trait of hesitancy and anxiety coming in handy for a character who is given a job she is too inexperienced to handle: just like Janhvi who ostensibly appears too young to play and untested such complex role.
Director Saria converts all of his leading lady’s alleged shortcomings (inexperience, nepotistic background) into scriptural advantages. This is Janhvi at her vulnerable best.
Ulajh is well crafted and not over-anxious to make an impression on the audience. It adheres to the rudimentary guidelines of political thriller and yet finds space for surprises. There is an episode in which Suhana plays a sloppy sleuth trailing a character on the streets of London. The way the protagonist’s amateurish outing is lensed is both amusing and scary.
The camerawork by Shreya Dev Dubey is unfussy and sensible; at the same time the frames look glamorous and inviting. The editing (Nitin Baid) is unsparing. There is no flab in the storytelling. If you are thinking of taking breathers in this breathless thriller, then don’t.
Incidentally, it is a relief to have Pakistani characters not prefixing every sentence with ‘Janaab’.
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