Bollywood cinema is dripping with love triangles. From Andaz to recent Aksar, these can speak volumes about the nature of love and underline tension: some soar to dizzy metaphorical heights while others stay at an entertaining literal level but the good ones have one thing in common; they engage our emotions.
It´s this ingredient that´s missing from Ankahee and uninspired screenplay do nothing to remedy the situation. This particular venture takes you on to an emotional ride of sacrifices.
’Ankahee’ is the narration of the story of his life by a father to his 12-year-old daughter.It’s about father talking to his daughter who he has not met in 16 years.
Shekhar (Aftab Shivdasani) works as a doctor and his personal life is equally fascinating - he has got a caring wife Nandita (Amisha Patel) and a loving daughter Sheena.
The situation turns awkward when the doctor meets a special patient. The patient, Kavya Krishna (Esha Deol) is the reigning Miss World and Bollywood’s biggest star.
She enters the hospital with a slit wrist and Shekhar attends her. She has everything in her kitty. Yet she leads a lonely life with nobody to share true love with her.
Love blossoms between the two.... And when this actually happened, there was turmoil all over! He even forgets about his family and job!
But Nandita’s world come cashing down with the event. And now she had to think of her as well as her daughter’s future ahead. But before that she had a confrontation to make.
The story is the weakest link of this enterprise. It offers the same formula-ridden twists and turns and those orthodox sacrifices. The goings-on are outright predictable and the execution has nothing novel to offer.
Director Vikram Bhatt does make a valiant attempt. There are certain scenes that touch your heart, especially that scene where those between Esha and Aftab.Unfortunately, a short burst of brilliance dies quickly in the tedium of an uninspired story and half baked script. It´s a love triangle in name but so ill-defined that it´s doubtful whether it has an apex. Also, the film is very slow-paced, which mars the impact to a major extent.
Ankahee works, in a minimal way, for two factors: Vikram’s execution and performances. Vikram has tackled different genres in the past and the film-maker ventures into a different alley this time around. Directorially, he shows his competence in several sequences and there’s no denying that as far as execution is concerned, this is amongst Vikram’s finest works. But his writers let him down terribly.
While the first half grips you gradually [although it’s slow-paced], the post-interval portions have been stretched unnecessarily, with boredom seeping in after a point. The film can also do with some judicious trimming of at least 20 minutes.
Technically the film is all over the place. Camera angles and cinematography are good, the film mostly takes place indoors and the interiors are stylish. Lighting is here and there, some scenes are very poorly lit, and others are uneven .
Anu Malik’s music serves as a soothing balm, but is not enough to elevate the film.
Ankahee belongs to Esha Deol . She sneaks her way through the role like an expert, drawing audience hatred the way a magnet collects iron filings.
Amisha has a sugar-and-sweet character till the pre-climax and she does it well. And when she does get the opportunity to display histrionics in the climax, she doesn’t let the opportunity pass by.
Aftab gives a subtle and restrained performance as Shekhar .Aftab is so comfortable on screen that he´s a pleasure to watch. He conveys Shekhar´s quandary with the right amount of emotion and sincerity
On the whole, Ankahee could’ve been an engaging saga, but it runs out of steam in the post-interval portions. It might appeal to a very tiny segment of viewers, but for the majority, it would only be a disappointment.