Anita
- Director
- Raj Khosla
- Studio
- | distributor =
- Running Time
- 154 min
- Language
- Hindi
- Country
- India
Cast
Review
Manoj Kumar and Sadhna's chemistry provides the emotional anchor for what is fundamentally a melodrama wrestling with class anxieties and supernatural elements that never quite cohere. The first half establishes genuine pathos—a father's inflexible rigidity, a young woman torn between duty and desire, a man stripped of agency by circumstance—but the film's tonal shifts become increasingly awkward once the narrative pivots toward the ghost subplot. The civil marriage rejection scene carries weight, but the introduction of Maya, the spectral doppelgänger, feels like it belongs in a different film entirely, disrupting rather than deepening the emotional throughline. Sadhna does admirable work conveying both Anita's desperation and Maya's ethereal detachment, yet even her capable performance cannot fully justify the screenplay's muddled logic.
Director's handling of the material is competent but uneven—the intimate scenes between the leads crackle with genuine tension, while the supernatural sequences fumble between horror and melodrama without landing convincingly in either register. The film seems unsure whether it wants to be a social commentary on class mobility or a ghost story, and this ambivalence undermines the impact of both. Where films like *Madhumati* (made around the same era) successfully wove reincarnation into a cohesive narrative about fate and class, *Anita* treats its supernatural elements as plot mechanics rather than thematic extensions. The production desig
Storyline
Neeraj (Manoj Kumar) and Anita (Sadhna) are deeply in love and want to marry but this is unacceptable to her father Bihari Lal, a millionaire as Neeraj does an ordinary job and Anita is a millionaire. When her father rejects her marriage with Neeraj, Anita visits Neeraj and asks him to marry her in a Civil Marriage. When both reach court, her father arrives and warns her of dire consequences for marrying against his wishes. Shattered, she walks away from Neeraj and returns home with her father. Anita's father wants her to marry Anil Sharma (Kishen Mehta), a business tycoon. When Neeraj tries to talk to her, she asks him to not come back in her life. Soon, Neeraj receives a letter from Anita, which raises suspicions in his mind. He goes to meet her, only to learn that she has committed suicide. Neeraj suspects foul play and decides to find out the truth on his own. He sees Anita at the same exact place where she supposedly committed suicide. His friend advises Neeraj to go on a vacation and try to forget the incident. During his vacation, at a picnic, Neeraj once again sees Anita as a saffron clad sadhvi (saint), Maya. Neeraj learns that he saw Maya Jogan (also played by Sadhana), who died 20 years ago. He sees her again in a train coach while travelling to Mumbai. Anita sends a letter to Neeraj asking him to meet at a hotel so that she can disclose the truth. To avoid the police, Anita meets Neeraj at his house. Anita then takes Neeraj to the secret building where Anil reveals that he killed his lover who was pregnant and threw her into the river and made it look like Anita committed suicide. Later the police come chasing Anil and he is killed in an encounter. After that, Neeraj and Anita are reunited and hug each other.