March 16, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Shivam Nair
Culture Representation: Taking place in 2011, in Pakistan, in India and briefly in Malaysia, in 2017, the dramatic film “The Diplomat” (based on real events) features an all-Asian group of people representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: J. P. Singh, Deputy High Commissioner of India in Pakistan, leads a rescue effort to save an Indian woman who wants to be classified as a refugee because she says a Pakistani man forced her into abusive marriage and wants to keep her in captivity in Pakistan.
Culture Audience: “The Diplomat” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching dramatic recreations of real-life international political stories involving refugee rescues.
Based on a true story about an Indian woman seeking an embassy rescue from her abusive Pakistani husband, “The Diplomat” tends to portray the heroes and villains as two-dimensional. This drama is still very compelling. And even when some of the movie gets melodramatic, the performances are never boring and carry the story through to a predictable but gratifying ending
Directed by Shivam Nair and written by Ritesh Shah, “The Diplomat” (which takes place in 2017) does not change the names of the main real-life people who are depicted in the movie. The movie’s first sequence is filled with gripping tension that doesn’t really let up until the expected outcome. “The Diplomat” realistically shows how the woman asking to be rescued had to go through clearance checks and skepticism before she was believed.
“The Diplomat” begins on May 5, 2017, by showing Uzma Ahmed (played by Sadia Khateeb), a woman in he 20s who is covered head-to-toe in veiled clothing as a passenger in a car driven by her husband Tahir Bashir (played by Jagjeet Sandhu), with Tahir’s best friend Basheer (played by Bhawani Muzamil) as a passenger. They are traveling in Pakistan from the district of Buner to the capital city of Islamabad. Uzma is an Indian citizen and they are going to the Indian Embassy in Islamabad to get some legalities sorted out for her passport.
At first glance, it looks like a leisurely trip. But Uzma is very quiet, and there is tension brewing. When Tahir, Basheer and Uzma arrive at the embassy, they go through the usual security checkpoints. But as soon as Uzma gets out of the eyesight range of Tahir and Basheer, she frantically runs to an employee in a glass enclosed booth, announces that she’s an Indian citzien, and begs for help because she says her life is in danger because she’s being forcibly detained in Buner.
The employee lets her go into a room that has other employees. The room has a locked door. Uzma grows increasingly hysterical and paranoid that the employees will let Tahir and Basheer into the room. Uzma says she was tricked into going to Pakistan and forced to marry Tahir, who has been physically abusing and keeping her in captivity.
The employees don’t know what to think without proof that what Uzma is saying is true. Uzma has a valid passport. A background check shows that she does not have a criminal history. Meanwhile, Tahir and Basheer are outside and demanding that Uzma go back to the car with them. Uzma refuses.
And that’s when a supervisor is called in to investigate the matter: J.P. Singh, the Deputy High Commissioner of India in Pakistan. J.P. (played by John Abraham) has a tall, commanding presence and a take-charge, no-nonsense style of leadership. When he questions Uzma in a conference room, he’s skeptical of her story because Uzma says that she was able to go to Buner without passing through checkpoints or having any records on immigration travel sheets.
When Uzma is in a room with two female employees, Uzma shows them the bruises that she says came from Tahir’s beating. A medical inspection shows that Uzma has bruises from sexual assault. A female employee named Seerat (played by Vidhatri Bandi) sees all of Uzma’s injuries and tells J.P. that she believes Uzma. J.P. still does not want to come to any conclusions because he says that even if the injuries were not self-inflicted, there’s no proof that Tahir caused these injuries and no proof that Uzma is being held captive.
Other people involved in the investigation are Sushma Swaraj (played by Revathy), India’s Union Minister of External Affairs, who calls J.P. to get updates on the case; Tiwari (played by Sharib Hashmi), an Indian Foreign Service official in Pakistan; and Malik Sahab (played by Ashwath Bhatt), Pakistan’s Director General of Inter-Services Intelligence. N.M. Syed (played by Kumud Mishra) is a senior diplomat/attorney who works at the Indian Embassy in Pakistan. N.M. brings a little bit of comic relief to the movie because he is a character who often seems surprised when J.P. tells him to do something that N.M. thinks he won’t be able to handle, but then N.M. ends up handling it pretty well.
Of course, Uzma is telling the truth about being kidnapped and trapped in an abusive marriage. Tahir is the type of abuser who wants to appear calm and rational to authorities, but Basheer is a loose cannon and immediately threatens violence if Uzma is not returned to them. It’s enough for the embassy officials to see that Uzma is probably telling the truth. And the movie quickly mentions that Uzma’s brother Aamir works for the Indian Embassy. Having that type of inside connection definitely helped.
What also helps Uzma is that because her rescue plea was so dramatic and so public, the media latches on to the story, which becomes big news in India and in Pakistan. With all the media attention, Uzma’s refugee story becomes an international political and legal case that can’t be dealt with quietly. Tahir ends up filing legal action that leads to a big courtroom showdown.
Before that happens, Uzma tells her story (shown in flashbacks) about how she ended up in this terrible situation. Uzma is a divorcée raising a daughter named Noor (played by Maryam Patel), who looks about 3 or 4 years old. Noor has thalassemia, an inherited blood disorder that causes the body to have less hemoglobin than normal. Uzma cannot afford the medical treatments that Noor needs.
Uzma met Tahir while they were both visiting in Kuala Lumpur, Maylasia. Tahir charms Uzma into a romance. He convinces her to move to Pakistan because he says that Noor can get affordable medical care in Pakistan. Uzma has relatives in Pakistan, which is why she did not hesitate to make this move. The relationship with Tahir and Uzma becomes serious enough where they make plans to live together.
On the drive to Buner (which is an area that is a lot more isolated and rural than Uzma expected), Tahir and Basheer are in the car with Uzma. Because they are driving in a winding mountain area, Tahir says Uzma might get motion sickness, so he gives her pill that he says will help her not get motion sickness. The pill is really a drug that makes Uzma feel disoriented.
When they arrive at Tahir’s home, the nightmare begins for Uzma. She finds out that he’s already married with kids and has a harem of other women who do whatever he says. Uzma is locked up in a room, where she is frequently beaten and raped by Tahir. The rape scenes are not graphic and poignantly show a closeup of Uzma’s eyes while she has this abuse inflicted on her.
Tahir then forces Uzma to marry him. (Polygamy is legal in Pakistan, with certain restrictions.) Uzma is living like a tortured prisoner. But with help from another woman in Tahir’s harem, Uzma is able to make a phone call that saves Uzma’s life. It’s the phone call that gives her the opportunity to go the Indian Embassy in Islamabad.
“The Diplomat” is focused primarily on showing J.P. to be the type of crusading professional that almost seems too good to be true. There are brief glimpses into J.P.’s home life in a few scenes that show he has a wife (played by Shriswara) and an underage son (played by Shaunak Duggal), as if to prove that he has a life outside of work. J.P.’s only vulnerability is shown in flashback scenes that reveal that J.P. is still feeling trauma over being in an embassy bomb explosion caused by the Haqqani Network, a Sunni Islamist militant group.
“The Diplomat” tells a story about the best and worst of humanity. However, the movie tends to depict its characters in broad strokes, with performances to match. All the “heroes” don’t have any personality flaws. All the “villains” are nothing but personality flaws. The performances are very watchable in the way that most superhero movies are watchable: You know that what’s on screen is exaggerated for dramatic purposes, but it’s a “good versus evil” story that’s kind of irresistible despite the familiar filmmaking formulas.
“The Diplomat” has no subtlety or nuances about its intentions to be a valiant refugee movie, with the Indian government presented as the best possible rescuer. It’s not quite propaganda, but the movie noticeably diminishes or sidelines the roles of the Pakistani government diplomats in this case. “The Diplomat” is not trying to educate people on the intricacies of international law. This movie succeeds in its main intention to tell a gripping refugee story based on real events, while tugging at viewers’ heartstrings.
Panorama Pictures released “The Diplomat” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on March 14, 2025.
