AFTERNOON - BOMBAY APR 18, 1985
Deepti has given a sterling performance as the mentally imbalanced Indu. She scores over other especially in one scene when she contrives er body to listen to western music blaring out of a tape-recorder from Nandu’s room and presumes them to be ghosts out to get her.

ANKAHEE REVIEW - FEB 1985
Indu is a thin character but Deepti Naval gives it more character than there is to it.

ABOUT DEEPTI - APR 20, 1985
Deepti Naval’s Indu is a brilliant accomplishment, a performance without a single false note.

EVENING NEWS OF INDIA - MAY 14, 1985
Naturally Deepti Naval is feeling on top of the world. One cannot but admire the kind of transition Deepti has made over the years, connections whatsoever in the industry, and built an impressive career, with no one to advise her on the ways of the wicked film world by sharpening her instinct on the whetstone of experience. Deepti has been picking up the right roles. As she never tries of saying: “The current year has been good for me. I have very impressive films lined up for release this year. I’m naturally very happy.”

FILMFARE - OCT 15, 1984
Amol once said that he took Deepti for the role mainly for her eyes. He chooses well. Her eyes convey the innocence of a child and later when she discovers the truth about her marriage, they mirror her torment. This is perhaps Deepti’s best performance after ‘Ek Baar Phir’.

FREE PRESS JOURNAL - APR 20, 1985
Deepti Naval is a sheer marvel. A performance that’s even better than what she achieved in ‘Kamla’. She transforms herself into a child, her face suffused with innocence, awe and fear – the raw terror of a soul possesses. The sequences where she wrestles throbs with frenzied vises as the soundtrack throbs with frenzied music have shattering impact.

INDIAN EXPRESS - APR 21, 1985
Deepti, exploding in two sequences of mental breakdown, has given the finest performance of her career and of any film this year.

STAR & STYLE - MAY 10-23, 1985
Deepti’s is multifaceted role where she has given a world class performance but the reason for this single sustained exposure is to draw immediate attention and interest.

THE HERALAD - JUNE 16, 1985
Deepti Naval is unforgettable, for her spontaneous charm. Appealing and fresh, making expressive use of her huge doe eyes, Deepti Naval avoids over-acting.

THE TIMES OF INIDIA - APR 1985
As for the performances, they are mostly ordinary. It’s only Deepti Naval who lights up the gloom by her presence. Her movements are as staccato as a waif’s; there are interior silences and her sensibilities are heightened to a sharp pitch. Hers is the only voice that can be really heard in “Ankahee”.

SUNDAY, CALCUTTA – APRIL 28, 1985
Deepti Naval as the cowering simpleton who grows up mentally after marriage over-shadows him as Indumati, whose innocence did not keep pace with physical growth until after she married.

EVENING NEWS OF INDIA - APR 20, 1985
What makes the situation more moving is Deepti Naval’s magnificent performance as Indu, and the admirable support from Amol Palekar as the husband who “confesses” all when it is too late.

FREE PRESS JOURNAL - MAY 5, 1985
Deepti Naval, the sensitive, brilliant actress has finally comes to terms with herself. Earlier, she had tried desperately to prove that she was not a misfit in the commercial entertainers.

SILVER SCREEN - JUNE 1985
It is Deepti Naval, as the naïve, lonely Indu, prone to hysterical fits, which brings life into the film and changes the tempo, which till her entry tends to be rather slow-paced and unwrapping. In a brilliantly effective performance, Deepti exhibits a gamut of emotions. She is captivatingly innocent in the introductory scenes. In the more difficult scenes, where as a victim of some strange psychological complex she suffers a fit at the harsh ringing of the telephone or the blaring music on stereo, Deepti handles the moments with sensitive histrionics rather than melodramatics. All in all ‘Ankahee’ is Deepti’s film. And director Amol agrees with the critics who have hailed her. “Deepti’s performance is the best undoubtedly,” he says. The entire structure hinges on one simple fact – that the audience be convinced by Deepti.

INDIAN EXPRESS - APR 21, 1985
Deepti, exploding in two sequences of mental breakdown, has given the finest performance of her career and of any film this year.

EVE'S WEEKLY - JAN-FEB, 1985
‘Ankahee’ and ‘Andhi Gali’ use with sensitivity and imagination the figure of the undemanding Indian woman and suicide as a statement of ultimate protest. And by coincidence, Deepti Naval plays the central role in both, revealing a refreshing range of finely nuanced emoting. Vulnerability is a quality which, over the years, gets rubbed off with the greasepaint under the harsh glare of arc lamps. Deepti Naval’s quiet charm and touching vulnerability come though in both films, made by directors as dissimilar in style and commitment as Amol Palekar and Bengal’s Buddadeb Dasgupta making his first Hindi film.

AMOL PALEKAR’S INTERVIEW – ANKAHEE - 1985
Being a new director, how did you bring outo the latent qualities in Deepti Naval to give an excellent performance in your film Ankahee?
Quite a few things are responsible for Deepti’s excellent performance. First and foremost, as an actress, Deepti is getting more mature day by day. If you see her performance in Kamla, you realize a change in Deepti as an actress, her whole attitude and her approach. Secondly, as a director I gave her the character, the raw material which evoked her sufficiently enough to give her best performance.

What kind of raw material did you provide her?
The raw material I provided her with was the information about this character and how she would behave. I didn’t want any gimmicks now a typical portrayal of a typical imbalanced person.

For instance, her performance on the staircase where she gets fits is, according to me, one of the most brilliant performances not only on Indian screen but anywhere in the world.

Now, I distinctly remember that Deepti was genuinely scared and worried about doing the scene. She kept procrastinating about that scene all along and every time I wanted to do it she somehow found excuses. Ultimately, I had to coax her into doing it; even going to the extent of deleting all that two page dialogue written for that scene. I explained to her that she could as well react to these lines instead of actually saying them. Then we did a very technical rehearsal for the whole scene for camera purpose. I thought we would straightaway have a take and I was saying all those lines in a very dramatic and menacing way as if I was going to attack her. Then she just let herself go and started reacting to those lines – that’s how we could get the scenes.

DAILY, BOMBAY – APR 20, 1985
Deepti Naval’s Indu is primarily responsible for camouflaging the loose ends in Ankahee. Though she is initiated with hysteria of fear telescoping into a rather inconsistent recovery, the actress has moments of enthralling sensitivity-like that scene with Nandu’s mother where she reflects on the touch of her husband or the visit to Sushma’s.
On the stairs she virtually makes you reach out to her for help-an absolute triumph.

SHOWTIME - MAY 1985
The strong points are the performances by Deepti Naval and Shreeram Lagoo.

NEW DELHI - APRIL 22, 1985
Deepti virtually steals the show.

NEWSTIME, HYDERABAD – AUG 25, 1985
The ideological content, the flawless portrayals and sensitive direction have contributed to the making of a film which will be remembered in the continuum of time. The movie is a must for discriminating viewers.

ASIAN BUSINESS – Jan 11, 1990
Ankahee is perhaps Deepti’s most talked about performance. Based on man’s belief in astrology and directed by Amol Palekar, it features a delightful Deepti as the marginally unbalanced Radha. An unusually well made film, marked with sensitive portrayals and superb direction is indeed a rare pleasure to witness.

REVIEW ANKAHEE
It is difficult to slot an actress like Deepti Naval. Just as one is all set to label her as just right for breezy, light-hearted comedies or musicals, and
not much else, she stuns audiences with a mind-blowing performance like the one in Ankahee.

ANKAHEE
Deepti handles her role intelligently and with sensitivity, she’s utterly convincing as the immature, slightly hysterical young woman. And she’s astounding as the wife – especially in scenes where she meets his ex-girlfriend and asks her, on her (Deepti’s) death, to wed and look after her husband and her still to be born child.

The film ends tamely, on a weak note. But this defect is overcome by a host of impressive performances from a distinguished cast, which includes Dina Pathak as Amol Palekar’s mother. But Deepti surpasses them all and her effort is all the more commendable as she is pitted against actors of repute. Ankahee deserves a viewing if only to see Deepti at work.

MAYAPURI – FEB 26, 1984
Amol Palekar and his pipe are working overtime these days and so is everyone at Suchimisha’s the film making company started by Amol and his friend Jayant Dharmadhikari. They are shooting “Anhakee” at great speed, the kind of speed that has to be seen to be believed.

According to Deepti Naval, who is playing one of the most exciting roles of my career” in the film, “it is a great pleasure working with Amol. It was hardly what I had expected when I started working in the film. It is one film I am eagerly waiting for. It has to make that big difference to all who are involved with it.”