After a five-year sabbatical from film acting, Rai made a comeback with Sanjay Gupta's drama-thriller "Jazbaa", co-starring Shabana Azmi and Irrfan Khan. A remake of the Korean thriller "Seven Days" (2007), the film saw Rai play the role of Anuradha Verma, a criminal lawyer who is forced to defend a rapist in exchange for her daughter's safety. Shubha Shetty-Saha of "Mid Day" criticised the film's unnecessary and intrusive melodrama and thought that Rai "looks the part and even does a fairly decent job, barring certain emotional scenes where she clearly goes over the top". The film underperformed at the box office.