Radhika is suffering from agoraphobia which was a result of her rape by a taxi driver.
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The 30-year-old star plays the role of an agoraphobic, a person who has the irrational fear of open or public places, in the flick. Dialogues by Pooja Ladha Surti are woven nicely with the psychology of a girl who is dealing with acrophobia.
Bollywood actress Radhika Apte’s upcoming film “Phobia” will hit the silver screen on Friday.
An idle mind is a devil’s workshop. Kripalani relishes playing with horror genre’s familiar tropes to in turn play with the uneasy audience – lots of mirrors, untraceable sounds, a black cat with yellow eyes, a derelict room with but of course a flickering light bulb and flashes of figures running by. The first function of a good horror film-long before it makes you think about buried themes and ideas-is to get under your skin while you’re watching it in that darkened hall (not on your blasted iPhone!), and Phobia works on this visceral level.
What Phobia does well is to subvert the genre.
Before, “Phobia”, she was seen in yet another thriller “Badlapur” which starred Varun Dhawan in the lead. Mahek’s paranoia is deep-rooted and she soon begins to believe the apartment is haunted. It’s telling to contrast Phobia with the 2013 Aatma, which is also about a woman being spooked: one reason for the difference in quality between the two films is the gap between Bipasha Basu’s one-note performance in that one and Apte’s utterly believable one here.
Mahek finds an unlikely ally in her quirky young neighour Nikki (Yashaswini Dayama) who buys into the conspiracy theories.
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Like most horror films, Phobia requires a suspension of disbelief – after all, who would conclude that the best way to cure a sick friend is by leaving her all alone in a new space? Nearly without make-up, Apte surrenders herself to play the part of a woman inching closer to a colossal meltdown. The background score is commendable.
