Living in the shadows

Tabu is superb as the spy with all the secrets in Vishal Bhardwaj's new thriller, 'Khufiya'

- Uday Bhatia

In my review of Vishal Bhardwaj's Charlie Chopra & The Mystery Of Solang Valley last week, I had expressed a hope that his next work would prove to be more a painting than a sketch. The first shot in Khufiya has the smeared beauty of a great watercolour. We see a street, its contours soft and indistinct, swirls of dark brown, yellow, the fluorescent blue of a lamp. A woman walks down it slowly, holding an umbrella, only her silhouette visible. And we hear Tabu's voice: "She was very strange..." We see the woman properly, in flashback, as the voice-over lists details only an intimate would know.Khufiya goes in several directions after this, a lot of them promising, but nothing made me lean forward like those first few moments.

(mild spoilers ahead)