phobia
Cast: Radhika Apte, Satyadeep Mishra, Ankur Vikal, Yashaswani Dayama
Rated: 5.5/10
Bollywood should be lauded for its effort for making movies that are a little hatke. The experimentation with a storyline, that is not your usual boy meets girl and they fall in love, is refreshing and kudos to director Pawan Kripalani, who has earlier given movies like Ragini MMS, for making Phobia.
The good part is that he knows what he wants from his actors and Radhika Apte makes sure that she delivers on each score; she has put her right foot forward in this one where she plays a painter, Mehak, with agoraphobia an irrational fear of open or public places. How she gets that is a tad familiar and cue has been taken from the Uber driver rape case in the Capital with a twist our protagonist gets away but not unscathed. The first half has plenty of scare moments. In fact, it gets accentuated through Apte’s brilliant performance her expressions and things that go bump even during the day; add to that a bloodied body and the stage is set. Is it her phobia or is there really something wrong in the new home that Mehak shifts as part of her therapyIJ
The concept of the movie is not something that Hindi cinema is familiar with or for that matter the audience. Of course, those who watch English movies will be more familiar with the idea and open to what unfolds. But then things take a turn and one wonders where the director was trying to take the movieIJ There have been movies on time travel and premonition in Hollywood and maybe Kripalani was trying to take a leaf from both and weave it into Phobia. The result is disappointing.
Not only was the build-up to the scare quotient lost at the climax, it appears as if the director was in a hurry to end the film, not something one would expect from a psychological thriller.