Cliched as it is, Citadel is proof that Priyanka Chopra Jonas isn't playing in the minor leagues

Amazon Prime Video show Citadel follows clichéd spy tropes, but paces itself swiftly enough to numb suspicions into submission. (Photo via Amazon Prime)

The first frame we see of Priyanka Chopra Jonas in Amazon Prime’s much-hyped Citadel is that of her perfectly tapered behind walking away from a blur as a fanciful train compartment rotates into view. Marketed as a marquee spy thriller, Citadel follows clichéd spy tropes, but paces itself swiftly enough to numb suspicions into submission. This isn’t the superhero league that Citadel creators, the Russo brothers, unleashed upon the world with the Avengers, nor is it the deftly observed landscape of intrigue that John Le Carre has so casually bled into through his immaculately detailed books. Citadel, instead, feels like a bridge between both and it finally gives Chopra the platform or that rare shot at worldwide popularity and prestige that she has eyed since leaving the modesty of Hindi cinema behind. Roughly 20 years after she made her Hindi debut, the Indian starlet has, at least in terms of sheer pop culture cache, made it. (Priyanka Chopra made her debut with Tamil film Thamizhan, opposite Vijay, in 2002.)

Chopra’s trajectory as an actress somewhat confirms the view that it takes ageing and a blend of cynicism and experience to eke out a career worth remembering as opposed one worth nostalgically revisiting. Cast as the exotic dame in her early years, Chopra chanced upon both glamour and grit indirectly. Her seductive role in Aitraaz complemented that element of mischief about her that shined through with roles in the Don franchise, culminating in delicious but underappreciated bits like Kaminey and 7 Khoon Maaf. In the whimsical Barfi!, Chopra shed that persona entirely while more recently in Dil Dhadakne Do and The Sky is Pink, she embodied women far more complicated than the run-of-the-mill heroines she had been forcefully projected onto throughout her career. Roles that the actress has consistently attempted to distance herself from.

Like many of her peers, Chopra has also endured the ignominy of playing second fiddle to mediocre men. It’s something she has belatedly started to voice, after setting between herself and the industry that spawned her, a safe distance. You can’t really blame Chopra for speaking her mind from a sense of security, from a place where she can’t be dictated to her second-tier position in the larger scheme of things. A lot has also changed since she migrated to foreign shores. Heroes no longer rule the roost in Hindi cinema, thanks to the expansion of our collective palettes, but its biggest stars continue to re-embellish that tired approach to storytelling. Ironically, our biggest films of late have only emboldened the kind masculinity that Chopra might have felt suffocated by in her years in Hindi cinema. For you cannot be in projects like Love Story 2050 and Krissh 3 and not feel your soul squirm for self-worth within the frame of your over-sexualised body.

Interestingly, Chopra’s foray into Hollywood, or English language cinema so to speak, hasn’t echoed a breakaway path to creative enlightenment of sorts either. She has been part of high-profile projects like Baywatch and The Matrix, where her participation felt evocative of her celebrity status as opposed to evidence of the acting chops she surreptitiously carries beneath the grandeur of living as a ‘Jonas’.

Chopra was fairly convincing in The White Tiger, watchable in the underwhelming American series Quantico, but is yet to really scream into the throat of the wind blowing in her favour. Nothing has jumped out at us so far, and Citadel, from the looks of it, isn’t going to change that either as far as merited pursuits go. What it will do, though, is place Chopra at par with some of the most recognizable names in the global business as part of a select group of actors who can draw eyeballs if not that statutory critical nudge that many will still insist on judging her by. This is her chance to also outgrow the vein of destructive outrage that has unfairly clung to her stardom, her life wherever she has moved to.

Chopra is on a career high, even if her second impression as a global star is subject to the vague contours of the English-speaking entertainment industry. In two weeks' time, she will also be headlining a woke, rom-com Love Again. But it’s Citadel that promises to elevate her to previously untouched heights.

Beyond the retro name, the series evokes the tropes, or should I say clichés, of modern spy franchises; franchises that have of late become exotic fantasies, regularly exhibiting desirable men and women as opposed to relatable, information-sifting registrars. There are fancy gadgets on show, memory wipes and all the silly gadgets you can expect from a show that categorizes scale as its only aspirational conduit. The story, the acting, is well, secondary. To which effect, Chopra fits the glove perfectly. She looks incredible, mixes into the show’s globetrotting mould and rarely looks out of place despite her desi baggage. She might still be subjected to public scrutiny every now and then, but with something as ambitiously ballistic as Citadel, she has possibly, in all senses of the word, globally arrived. “Look at me. Do you think I play for the minor leagues,” she tells a man in the series, trying to guess what agency she works for. She does not. Not anymore.