Watch Alia Bhatt's 'Darlings' For Black Comedy And Thriller

Read Time:3 Minute, 26 Second

Cast: Alia Bhatt, Shefali Shah, Vijay Varma and Roshan Mathew

Director: Jasmeet K. Reen

Produced by Alia Bhatt, Gauri Khan, Gaurav Verma

Alia Bhatt starring Darlings was released on 5th August 2022. The film is a dark comedy dealing with domestic violence, with the elements of humour and irony added.

Badru hopes her volatile husband will reform if he stops drinking. However, when his rage goes too far, she and her mum boldly, albeit clumsily, seek revenge.

However, the story left us with a little confusion. In the beginning, the couple is shown madly in love, but slowly and gradually, because of alcohol addiction, the husband is shown as beating his so-called darlings with an extra “s”.

And by the end, we saw the formation of an another love story, which was quite unpredictable and was also not necessary for the story. It looked like they were just adding some extra dialogue to stretch the part, which was not necessary, according to me.

If we talk about acting skills, then Alia Bhatt has done her job very well. The way she transformed herself into the role of Badru was commendable. She was so perfect: the simple, sober girl who fell in love with a guy, then waited to be loved and have a child, with so many to-do list items to do with her husband, and finally took revenge in a hope of better future.

The character development was on point, like from a married woman not standing for herself to a woman fighting and taking revenge to set herself free from the dominance of her husband.

If we talk about the characters, then we must not forget the way Shefali Shah as Shamshun was shown, an independent and clever woman who has already experienced the ill effects of a wrong marriage and doesn’t want her daughter to go through the same. She is very much eager to save her daughter from Hamzu, for which she is prepared to go to any extent. Her character was very much interested as she was cunning, manipulative, and even, we can say, fearless in making some extreme plans. And the revelation of her shocking past without the use of dialogues was on point.

But ya, we could say, the way the plot was developed is shown as if attempting murder is easier than taking a divorce. And much emphasis on superstitious beliefs too. We even witnessed the courageous nature of both the women to deal with the situation.

The first half of the movie was based on the violent treatment of Badru by Hamza, and that too, only because of his habit of consuming alcohol. In the second half, we see the character development as Hamza also tries to get rid of alcohol and is quite romantic with his wife, but on the other hand, we see that Badru, her mother, and Zulfi have some different plans. Moral was developed in a way by giving Hamza the taste of his own medicine by treating him the same way and instead in a more painful way, which even led to his own death.

The ending was very unpredictable, as according to Bollywood movies, we generally see happy endings, but here, even after thinking for a while that okay, Hamza is safe now and has learnt his lesson, we suddenly hear the noise of a train approaching and the tragic hero meets his tragic end. And also, even after planning for murder, then trying to attempt it, then not killing and leaving him, the whole chaos was quite well managed.

It was fun to watch, the way story was built kept us sitting to know what’s going to happen next. If you are a fan of dark comedy and thrill, then you are gonna enjoy the film.

IPI STAR RATING (3/5)