The Veil (2024) – Contemporary but …

 

 

Director:  Daina Reid. Damon Thomas (3 episodes each)

Genre: Spy thriller

Time: TV series – 6 x 55-minute episodes

Platform: Disney + Hotstar

Cast:  Elisabeth Moss. Yumna Marwan. Dali Benssalah.

 

 

Imogen Salter (Elisabeth Moss) is an MI6 operative who takes down rogue traders. She is sent to a refugee camp on the Turkey-Syria border posing as an aid worker. Adilah (Yumna Marwan), is identified as an ISIS operative by the refugees and they almost lynch for her supposed atrocities under ISIS control. Imogen rescues Adilah from the crowd and takes her on a ride to Ankara. She is in constant contact with French intelligence liaison and boyfriend Malik Amir, who instructs her to hand over Adilah at a designated place. Adilah begs Imogen and swears by her daughter that she is not the ISIS woman they think she is. Imogen has other interests in keeping her on her side and their journey to Paris begins. Amir is upset that Imogen is not sticking to the program. In Paris, Adilah’s daughter is kidnapped by the Americans and then released, after they take a lock of hair for DNA identification. Imogen is sure that Adilah is using her as part of a larger terrorist spectacular which she wants to uncover.  The tension keeps increasing. Imogen does not whom to trust and then falls back on her retired boss and tells him that she and Adilah will make it to England while hotly pursued by both the Americans and the French.

 

The series starts off well and is absorbing till the fourth episode with some deft spycraft – switching cars, identities, avoiding the omnipresent CCTV cameras and so on.  The Turkey-Syria border and the refugee camp condition is well replicated. For four episodes the pace is excellent.

 

However the fifth and sixth episode are a total letdown . Its almost as if the writers didn’t know what to do and were under pressure to hurry up and close the serial. There is a hurried disconnected feel to the last two episodes and the resolution of the problem is underwhelming.

 

American Moss has a decent British accent, Yumna Marwan as Adilah is excellent as the suspected terrorist . The is-she or isn’t she part of the story means that Marwan has to project vulnerability while keeping her real purpose hidden as per the character.

 

If it had not been for the last two episodes letdown this would have been an excellent spy thriller.

 

Script – 3 out of 5

Story – 4 out of 5

Direction – 4 out of 5

Photography – 4 out of 5

 

Total – 3.8 out of 5