Khufiya – Tabu and Wamiqa Propel Vishal Bhardwaj’s Espionage Drama

Khufiya

Khufiya is an anomaly in Vishal Bhardwaj’s filmography. It’s primarily a thriller, from a man noted for his unconventional response to genre – one could even argue that his films are somewhat masala films, they have a bit of everything, from romance to action to drama. In his eleventh feature (and his first in five years), Bhardwaj relocates from his preferred setting of India the countryside to New Delhi – sleek, crisp-cut, exuding an urbanity that has never really been his thing. Into this new world of his are an eclectic group of people, most of whom work in the shadowy, dim-lit corridors of a government office on Lodhi Road. At the helm of matters central to this story is Krishna Mehra (Tabu), assumedly a senior-ish R&AW officer detailed to lead an operation to unmask a mole whose activities threaten subcontinental politics. Her boss Jeev (Ashish Vidyarthi – calm, composed) draws her attention to one Ravi Mohan (Ali Fazal), an officer with a young family and tastes that far outstrip the salary he draws courtesy of the Fifth Pay Commission.

There is an instant newness to how Khufiya plays out. For too long, Hindi films about spies have been about refashioning “real events” set in the past and Bollywood-ising them. They are globe-trotting vehicles for the stars they position in leading roles. There are romantic interludes, dance sequences, and usually a hackneyed monologue about service to the nation. Here, then, is the sort of film that positions itself in the ambiguity of the twenty-first century, and does not attempt to repurpose espionage as being anything more than an asset to be deployed in times of unconventional warfare. While Krishna is never badly dressed, she doesn’t look like she walked out of a magazine photoshoot either. The offices aren’t as ramshackle as some might have been led to believe is the state of all government offices, but they are no glitzy, glamourous spaces either. This neatness transfers to the film, which Bhardwaj approaches by melding the beats of family drama and doomed love into the grammar of a thriller – a surveillance camera not only informs us of Ravi’s activities but also about his wife Charu’s (Wamiqa Gabbi) love for dancing to 70s Hindi music and smoking a joint in an empty house, and of their raising of their young son Kunal.

Bhardwaj’s narrative is centred, as so many of them are, on love. It is the underlying, often invisible motive or fallibility of the characters in Khufiya. Krishna is driven by the hope of avenging her lover that she keeps tempered for most of the film, determined to see her mission through to its end. Charu is blissfully blindsided by her husband, though she does stop to question where he gets the money for expensive jewellery from. Ravi’s motives are suspect, but his actions too are driven by some sense of love. Bhardwaj rests heavily on the mother-son relationship, three illustrations of which play out in the film, and how parental love can sometimes be the most powerful, and yet the most dangerous kind in the world (an arc through which Navnindra Bahl delivers a performance that is equally chilling and amusing).

Part of my enjoyment of Khufiya came from the physical reality of the film. In the grey-blue Delhi offices, one can almost smell the mildew one often finds in government daftars. Outside, the streets of Delhi start to resemble a bit of Los Angeles’ depiction from Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler: similar popping neon lights in desolate spaces of a crowded city. Heavy shadows almost everywhere. Hell, even the local Mother Dairy (the proverbial cow of most middle-class Delhi neighbourhoods) has secrets to hide. When the action of the film moves to a different country, Bhardwaj and DP Farhad Ahmed Dehlvi let in more light: motives are clearer now, loyalties are out in the open. Bhardwaj is a tad bit indulgent with the outdoors, in that he can’t help shooting a song that captures Canada’s gorgeous landscape, but that also somewhat helps the film segue into this new milieu.

I was less taken by the references: the Shakespeare ones were still forgivable (Tabu can make painfully “pick-me” dialogue sound cool) but the Agatha Christie one made me roll my eyes, perhaps because I dislike Christie and Bhardwaj’s recent adaptation of her book The Sittaford Mystery into Charlie Chopra and the Mystery of Solang Valley was just about passable. The film could arguably have done without trying to make me jive à la Charu to the 60s-70s caper-esque score it often resorts to: it isn’t the music at fault so much as it is the film Bhardwaj is making, which doesn’t sit well with the score tonally.

Ali Fazal is a striking performer, and he imbues Ravi with enough conflicts to make him a believable but not contemptible man, and yet the film misses the mark in not giving him more to do. As the character driving the action, Ravi is almost passive, and Fazal’s best chops aren’t quite enough to embed him in the memory one has of the film.

Tabu is at her best, striking a balance between a grieving lover and a diligent, duty-bound officer. It is the sort of performance one has come to expect of her, with her wry smiles and ill-concealed anger. Krishna being a letdown of a mother is likely to draw comparisons to her turn in Haider, but while Ghazala was present in much of that story, Krishna is an absentee parent. She summons enthusiasm for her son’s theatre performances, but not the courage or the mindfulness to be there. One senses that work has become an excuse to avoid a role she is just not comfortable inhabiting. She ruminates and punishes herself until she is told to stop, of all people, by her ex-husband (an excellent Atul Kulkarni). That she doesn’t, that she finds a way to fix things makes for the sort of viewing experience Khufiya is largely about.

The star of the show, though, is Wamiqa Gabbi, who is having a bit of a moment, what with starring in Jubilee and being the best thing about Charlie Chopra. Gabbi’s Charu is the nerve centre of Khufiya, a woman who appears to have tremendous agency but whose life will be dictated by the actions of her husband, which she is blissfully unaware of. Her questions go unanswered, but nothing seems off to her. When things do go awry, Charu is forced to reckon with them, and in doing so, she must refashion her way of being. Gabbi performs with great heart in a film largely bereft of it: her anger is voiced, and her anguish is gut-wrenching. Charu has multiple purposes in doing what she chooses to do, but Bhardwaj underpins it through a moving bond she shares with someone, and Gabbi, who not long ago was dancing to Ye Jawani Hai Diwani, lip-sync and everything, does the rest.

Khufiya is a more ambiguous, a more mature turn from the politics Bhardwaj made evident in Haider and Rangoon, neither of which left much room for depth and conflict in the matters they addressed. Here Bhardwaj makes his peace with the grey area, seeking not a version of truth but an idea of what is real in the shadows of the world. While I was a little miffed at the absence of a personal stamp that has been Bhardwaj’s trademark, one could come to see Khufiya as the reflection of a more mature voice, of a man willing to address problem areas without needing to provide answers to those problems.