Anamika Ep 1 Review: Sunny Leone’s action avatar does not save her thriller from a poor screenplay

Anamika

Cast: Sunny Leone, Rahul Dev, Samir Soni, Sonnalli Seygall, Ayaz Khan

Director: Vikram Bhatt

Streaming on: MX Player

An amnesic woman, Anamika, who has been living with her boyfriend, Dr. Prashant for three years, suddenly comes face to face with her past, when her instincts take her where her mind could not. Considered dead after a fatal accident, she reappears in front of her old acquaintances and enemies who are now trying to hunt her down. The reason? Once considered ‘one of the best agents’, ‘Agent M’ to be precise, she has crucial information about government agencies in her knowledge that must not come out in public knowledge. Will Anamika finally find out the truth about her past? Will she outwit her enemies, or will they finally track her down? This becomes the plot for Vikram Bhatt’s new web series, Anamika, starring Sunny Leone in the lead. 

Anamika is an 8 epsiode series, with each episode having a runtime of 25-30 minutes, and director Vikram Bhatt has no time to waste. He kickstarts the action in the first few seconds of the episode, and this fast-paced storytelling continues throughout. While it might work in some aspects, however, in the first episode of Anamika, it mostly ends up making one feel dissociated with the characters’ journeys, as one is given no time to either process, or believe the information presented to them.

For instance, you know Anamika and Dr. Prashant (played by Ayaz Khan) are in a relationship, yet apart from a hurried back story, Vikram Bhatt does not indulge in showcasing believable emotions or chemistry between his characters. Speaking about chemistry, in one awkward scene, we see Anamika and Prashant’s silhouettes as they share an emotionally intimate moment, just before they lean in to kiss. The camera keeps zooming in, while it feels like Sunny and Ayaz are simply delivering their lines from memory, with no intention or intensity attached to what the words convey. The dialogues don’t contribute to this scene either. 

It should be definitely noted that Sunny Leone is cast in a never-seen-before action avatar. She’s knocking down men with guns with ferocity. In Anamika, she is not reduced to being an object of the male gaze, but she’s someone with a complex history, a troubled past, and a conflict with her own mind, and that’s a great start to break free of being typecast. One can see honest hard work behind Sunny’s performance, and it would be unfair to not acknowledge that. However, it is not enough, as it fails to compensate for the poor screenplay. Moreover, the decision to dub Sunny’s dialogues does not work in her favour. 

As for Ayaz Khan and his limited screen time in the first episode, all I can say is, his performance as Aditi’s toxic boyfriend Sushant Modi in Jaane Tu…Ya Jaane Naa is definitely more memorable than as the supportive, decent Prashant in Anamika. 

Watch the trailer of Sunny Leone's Anamika below:

 

While the first episode did not turn out too impressive, the next few episodes might be different after Rahul Dev, Samir Soni, and Sonnalli Seygall’s characters are introduced. 

Anamika is streaming on MX Player from today. 

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