Radhika Apte gives her best performance so far in Phobia

Phobia is a psychological thriller directed by Pawan Kripalani and produced by Viki Rajani. Besides the movie being one-of-a-kind psychological thriller, the makers have incorporated ‘Virtual Reality’ technology in the film, first for a Bollywood film. The central character’s fears and visualisations have been shot by a 360 degree camera rig and the audience gets a feel of what she is experiencing.

The film revolves around a young artist Mehak (Radhika Apte) who is a hugely talented artist. She meets with an unfortunate mishap that traumatises her and she develops agoraphobia, a phobia where the individual is paranoid about being in public places. Mehak’s sister Anu (Nivedita Bhattacharya) is exhausted with her eccentric behavior, especially when it starts impacting her own son. Shaan (Satyadeep Mishra), a close friend, takes Mehak to a friend’s house, thinking that it might help her to live alone for a while. At the new apartment, Mehak befriends Nikki (Yashaswini Dayama), a teenager who lives in the neighbourhood. Her other neighbour Manu (Ankur Vikal) is working on anger management issues and is part of a community laughter club. Manu was the boyfriend of Jiah who earlier lived in the apartment where Mehak currently stays. Jiah is now absconding but Mehak finds her diary. She believes that Manu killed Jiah. Is it her phobia that makes her see paranormal incidents or is it for real? Has Manu really killed Jiah? This forms the rest of the film.

A flat with an eerily locked room, a cracked mirror, an about-to-be-bloodied bath-tub, a black cat and fleeting apparitions all form the backdrop of this spooky movie. Even though you have seen such scenes in other horror films, there is a novelty aspect about these scenes in this film.

The screenplay is such that it keeps you riveted through the course of the film. The first half will give you the shrieks and just before the interval, you’ll be surprised by the exciting twists. Only if Pawan could hold the pace of the film and keep the thrills and suspense consistent until the end, this film could have been a masterpiece. However, Pawan is lucky to have an actress like Radhika Apte. She almost makes up for the small flaws. In her interviews, she mentioned it was tough and physically straining to do the panic attack scenes for hours in closed spaces. Kudos to the brave heart for essaying this role with such perfection that nobody else could have taken her place.

Satyadeep Mishra as the pal who wants to be more, Ankur Vikal as the creepy neighbor under suspicion for having done away with his lady love, Yahaswini Dayama as the friend who buys into Mehak’s stories all form a good supporting cast.

Daniel George’s music by is good and Karan Gaur’s background score make the psychological thriller even more fascinating to watch.

Well, if rumour is to be believed, the makers of the film are planning a sequel to this film on the fear of flying. Hope they do make a sequel and hope this one and the next comes out at the box office with flying colors.

As of now, watch the spooky film to experience Mehak’s phobia through Radhika Apte as she delivers her best performance so far.