Film Review: Anamika

Film: Anamika

Director: Anant Mahadevan

Producer: Bhanwar Lal Sharma

Banner: Bhanwar Lal Sharma Production

Cast: Dino Morea Minissha Lamba, Koena Mitra, Aarti Chhabria, Achint Kaur, Gulshan Grover

Rating: 2.5/5

A young, innocent orphan girl steps into the big bad corporate world as an escort. With no experience to back her, she falters. But very soon she has her employer fall in love with her and eventually, marry her. The marriage takes her to his ancestral palace in Rajasthan that holds dark secrets of his past marriage on which hinges their present and future.

Recalling Hitchcock's Rebecca, this film does a lot to match up to the original but remains mediocre due to a number of reasons. Anamika begins with a distinct intrigue. It thickens when the scenario includes Rajasthan with its mystique sands and haunting havelis. True, the mystique of royal palaces is well-utilised to create an ambience of edginess and the setting gives a lot to the film by its sheer presence. But the potential to exploit is shrouded in pretensions to grandeur than grandeur itself.

Despite a lot of shabbiness the director keeps his audience engaged. As it proceeds, he reveals clues about the past with his characters never revealing too much or hiding too much to keep you hooked at all times. Be it the relationship of the lead pair, the welfare of the hero or heroine, or the unraveling of the mystery itself. Thankfully the interest remains as the story unfolds.

It is not easy to make a thriller. An intriguing plot, a sharp screenplay, tantalizingly balanced between revealing and hiding, and realistic exploration of emotions with just a touch of drama that shies off melodrama and pat, you have the formula ready. Though there are many others too but Ananth N. Mahadevan seems to have this one pat except for a few glitches that dull the shine the film could have achieved.

The film is peppered with instances and characters that support the intrigue but not the story. In the...

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