Ulajh: Movies that talk down to the audience are an epidemic in Bollywood, but this one is almost unwatchable

Nobody likes being talked down to, but Ulajh addresses its audience — many of whom paid to watch it, by the way — with the sort of condescending disdain that might make you want to round up a bunch of sardarji cousins from Punjab and fight somebody on an airstrip. Certainly, on more than one occasion, Janhvi Kapoor’s protagonist chooses violence when it seems like the least logical thing to do. It’s not that violence can’t be a solution in movies like this, but at no point does Ulajh establish her combat skills. She’s a diplomat, for crying out loud. And that, too, one battling charges of nepotism.

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Her name is Suhana Bhatia, and she is introduced with the sort of exposition dump that momentarily makes you wonder if you’re watching a cheaply produced Hotstar show. “Aapke father Korea mein mere ambassador they, aur aapke dadu ka naam pure Hindustan ki textbooks mein likha hai,” says Suhana’s boss to her in one of her two introduction scenes. Interactions like this one are always frustrating, because they are written only for the audience. Both characters involved should already be aware of this information. Is the movie trying to say that Suhana doesn’t know of her grandfather’s achievements? Or is this supposed to be the first time that her boss is telling her that he used to serve under her dad?

Janhvi Kapoor and Gulshan Devaiah in a still from Ulajh.

But Ulajh’s expository afflictions aren’t limited to its protagonist. Such is the brain-rot on display, even characters who never appear in the film more than once speak exclusively in info-dumps. For instance, at a party to celebrate Suhana’s appointment as the new Deputy High Commissioner to England, a woman barges into the living room with a wine glass in her hand, and declares, “Dhanraj mera bhai hai and I love him.” Dhanraj is Suhana’s decorated dad; the woman is his sister. We never see or hear from her again. Did we need to know the specifics of their relationship?

Most of Ulajh’s problems can be traced back to a rather basic logistical issue in Hindi cinema writing. Often, the person responsible for creating characters has little to do with what they actually say. A separate dialogue writer is appointed to come up with lines, even though they might not necessarily be familiar with their personalities. It falls on them to seamlessly convey heaps of information that may or may not be important in the larger picture. You can almost imagine the Ulajh screenplay identifying Dhanraj’s sister directly, leaving the dialogue writer scratching their head about how to weave this information into conversations. The easiest option, invariably, is to just have characters declare who they are. The only trouble is that nobody actually speaks like this in the real world.

But Ulajh always goes for the easiest option, which is how we end up with multiple scenes in which its mild-mannered protagonist finds herself on the verge of committing murder. Who cares about putting her diplomatic skills on display? She’s driven to this point after being betrayed by an ISI agent who secretly records their fling and threatens to leak the video unless she provides him with top-secret information about undercover R&AW agents. A leaked sex tape would be a lazy plot device even in a sleazy B-grade film. But in a movie that struts around like it has been written by Stephen Gaghan, it’s outrageous.

Played in a scenery-chewing performance by Gulshan Devaiah, the villain feels like he has stepped out of an entirely different (but much better) film. He introduces herself to Suhana as a chef named Nakul. They hit it off at a party, where she asks him a rather basic question, “Tumhari family kahan se hai (Where is your family from)?” But his response is as unnatural as anything else in the film. “Pata nahi,” he says, “12 saal ka tha chhod ke chale gaye.” This, by the way, is the movie’s idea of chemistry. Ulajh also takes a neon highlighter and draws circles around Nakul’s strange pronunciation of the word ‘éclair’, only because it wants you to remember this during a third-act revelation. It’s juvenile stuff.

Janhvi Kapoor in a still from Ulajh.

But the film’s most hilarious moment is when ‘Nakul’ reveals his real name: Humayun. He does this like a Scooby Doo villain unmasking themselves after being caught red-handed. Only, Humayun hadn’t been caught at all. He could’ve simply continued his charade and extracted more information out of Suhana, earning himself a pat on the back for going above and beyond the call of duty. Why would he deliberately reveal his real identity? Have you ever heard of a secret agent blowing their own cover? But Ulajh has no interest in being believable, despite the rather grounded tone that it’s going for.

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Humayun is somehow able to gain access into the Indian high commission without breaking a sweat. In fact, he openly threatens Suhana inside the building, that is, on Indian soil. He gets away with equal ease. The clandestine trade-offs that he arranges with her are conducted in the most theatrically over-the-top venues. Their first meeting, for instance, takes place in some kind of bunker, but instead of lurking in the shadows, Suhana waits for Humayun to show up under a literal spotlight. Oh, and she also allows herself to be incriminated while handing over top-secret documents to him, giving him even more ammo against her.

These scenes are a failure of performance, staging, and execution. A little bit of vulnerability would’ve gone a long way in putting us in the shoes of a young woman caught in a horrific situation, made to choose between herself and her country. None of these psychological nuances are felt, because the movie would rather hurtle towards the next plot beat, losing sight of the human drama quicker than a true crime documentarian covering a murder-suicide case. But the only thing dying a slow death here is the idea of creativity. In the film’s equivalent of a post-credits scene — yes, there’s one of those, too —  Ulajh has the audacity to introduce Sakshi Tanwar as some kind of Nick Fury figure and set up a sequel. What movie did they think they were making?