Phobia

Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru attempt a psychological thriller that mistakes atmospheric dread for actual narrative tension, and the result is a frustratingly half-baked affair. Mehak's agoraphobia could have been the spine of something genuinely unsettling, but instead, the film squanders its premise by turning her mental struggle into mere backdrop for a conventional whodunit. Adriana Lima brings a certain intensity to her role, but she's fighting against a script that can't decide whether it wants to be a study of trauma or a mystery box thriller—it ends up being neither. The twist involving Jiah's disappearance lands with all the impact of a deflated balloon, and by then, you've already checked out because the logic holding the story together has completely disintegrated.

What's maddening is that the setup had potential. A woman with severe anxiety trying to decode whether her neighbor is a killer—there's genuine thriller material there. But Rao and Sapru keep cutting away from Mehak's internal struggle to focus on red herrings and manufactured jump scares that feel borrowed from inferior horror flicks. Manu is painted as menacing but never believable, and the film's treatment of both agoraphobia and domestic abuse feels exploitative rather than thoughtful. The cinematography is competent enough, but technical adequacy doesn't mask the fundamental problems with storytelling and character development.

Rating: 4/10