Darlings (डार्लिंग्ज)

​"Darlings (डार्लिंग्ज)"

Watched Hindi movie "Darlings (डार्लिंग्ज)".

This movie is directed by Jasmeet K. Reen. Written by Parveez Sheikh, Jasmeet K. Reen. Produced by Gauri Khan, Alia Bhatt, Gaurav Verma. It stars Alia Bhat, Shefali Shah, Vijay Varma, Roshan Mathew, Rajesh Sharma, Kiran Karmarkar. Music by Vishal Bharadwaj, Mellow D. Cinematography by Anil Mehta. Film runs for about 2 hour and 14 minutes and was released in 2022. I watched it on Netflix with Aditi and Dada on 8th Aug 2022.  

Alia and Vijay are married. Vijay has drinking problem that always results in domestic violence. Shefali is Alia’s widow mother who advises her to leave Vijay. 

It’s a movie with Muslim background. The language, the culture, lower middle class background, chawl atmosphere; all of it feeds into the story. 

Alia plays bubbly, gullible, lovelorn, optimistic young Badru who can’t see reason. Shefali plays strong, wise, worried mother; Shamsu. Vijay plays the drunkard, violent, sleek, devious Hamza. Roshan plays helpful, good, innocent Zulfi. 

Movie starts in interesting ways. Once the story is established, the movie slows down. Audience wonders how this is going to end. Eventually the movie ends well but not before torturing you. Handling of the movie after realization is messy at best. It disappoints. It’s the acting that takes the boat to the shore, otherwise ….

So what’s in the title? No, it’s not plural of darling. It’s just bad English singular. 

Positives: Acting. 

Negatives: Story, Handling of story in second half. 

Dimag ka dahi.