Darlings Review: There are a few things that ‘Darlings’, makes a watch worthy film. The movie brings domestic violence to the fore, and is bang on target, the most striking of them being the way it has created its couple — a husband who keeps beating his wife; and the wife who keeps believing, in a curdled mix of hope and desperation, that ‘ek din woh badal jaayenge’ (one day he will change).
This may be a common occurrence in many Indian households, but it rarely receives the attention it deserves. The husband is an alcoholic who has no remorse for beating his wife every night, and the wife is madly in love with the man and doesn’t mind cooking breakfast every morning for him with bruises all over.
Darlings Review: Alia Bhatt and Shefali Shah makes the movie an engrossing affair
Although it’s not ideal to choose a topic like domestic violence for a dark comedy, Darlings, starring Alia Bhatt, Shefali Shah, and Vijay Varma, manages to hit the mark. It is a funny (as ironic as it may sound) look at how abuse against women and men is normalised, directed by debutante Jasmeet K Reen. Nothing justifies either party’s behaviour, yet it’s interesting to see the story pan out in a way that it never really looks unsettling.
Roadside romeo Hamza Shaikh (Vijay Varma) wins the heart of Badrunissa Shaikh called Badru (Bhatt), who marries him as soon as he gets a position in the government. Three years later, in Bhatt’s post-marriage existence, we watch him being beaten up every night for a different cause. It can be a kankar in the food, or it could be simply because she attended a colony meeting without her husband’s permission.
Secondly, he believes she is having an affair at the moment. Every day, the abuse becomes disturbingly worse, until one day Badru makes the decision to take the initiative and step up. Darlings then demonstrates how a middle-class mother-daughter team (Shah and Bhatt), who are caught in their own contextual hang-ups, gradually learns what their own circumstances really mean.
Darlings, which has a runtime of two hours and fourteen minutes, is well-paced, with intriguing surprises coming one after another. Reen’s story, which she and Parveez Sheikh co-wrote, is engrossing and does arouse feelings of anxiety, helplessness, and pity.
More so than the plot, Vijay Maurya’s (along with Sheikh and Reen’s) outstanding language truly make the dark comedy movie suit the mould. If you’re not paying attention, you can miss certain one-liners and comedy jabs that will make you wonder why the person seated next to you is laughing so loudly. A funny and heartbreaking climax will surprise you, so be prepared.