Set during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, the film tells the real-life story of a young Indian girl from Kashmir (played by Alia Bhatt) who marries a Pakistani army officer (Kaushal) to spy for Indian intelligence. He was drawn to the humanity he found in the story and worked towards conveying both vulnerability and authoritative strength in his character.[26] The film emerged as one of the highest-grossing Hindi films featuring a female protagonist and Meena Iyer of Daily News and Analysis commended Kaushal for being "the correct foil" to Bhatt's character.[27][28] His second Netflix production of the year was the anthology film Lust Stories.