REVIEW: Heart of Stone

Alia Bhatt (who we all know from her recent hit Rocky Aur Rani KiI Prem Kahaani) has set her foot into the world of Hollywood with Netflix’s Heart of Stone which released on 11th August 2023 on the streaming platform. The film is your average spy action-thriller with good guy/ bad guy trope. But it seems that director Tom Harper has done something a bit different that makes this film worth to watch.

Rachel Stone is an intelligence operative, the only woman who stands between her powerful global peacekeeping organization and the loss of its most valuable — and dangerous — asset.

It’s amazing how different one’s perspective changes when the lead is female. Harper uses this to his advantage as a way to subvert the expectation that men are the best for spy thrillers. Of course, when there is a female lead in these films, directors usually use the ‘male gaze’ and use them as a way to objectify them – rendering them useless in the film.

However, Harper cleverly uses Gal’s Rachel Stone and Alia’s Keya Dhawan as a commentary that times have changed and women have more authority as the female lead to save herself and not get a love story in the background. This spy thriller solely focuses on Gal’s mission to save an asset and Keya’s mission to keep the asset to herself.

This film is full is twists and turns and keeps the audience on the edge of their seats.