Darlings

Jasmeet Reen's Darlings deals with the question that Indian women have heard time and again: Why don't you leave it if it is so bad?

Shamshu and Badru’s relationship is the high point of the film that shines bright. Netflix hasn’t managed to make a lot of forays into desi content and is losing viewership too. You never forget the horrific treatment of Badru by Hamza. But you also marvel at her refusal to crouch into the corner. It’s equal parts comic and cathartic to watch Hamza get a taste of his own medicine. That adds a disturbing element to the film. She negotiates the universe of Badru and Shamshu without being insensitive.

Alia Bhatt's dark-comedy film, 'Darlings' is currently streaming on Netflix.

A third user said: "just finished #darlings and i just loved it, it was more darker than i was expected, the story is so gripping and unfortunately too real, so many women still suffer from their husband's violences, the cast was fabulous, bow down to alia who is really a superstar !" Another user said: "I think I cried more than I laughed (and I laughed A LOT) #Darlings." A Twitter user wrote: "#Darlings on #Netflix is an absolute cinematic representation of how normalised patriarchy is in our country, and how subtly this glass is broken by this mother-duo by thrashing patriarchy and abuse. The dark comedy marks Alia’s first release post the success of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Gangubai Kathiawadi. The music for the film is composed by filmmaker-composer Vishal Bhardwaj, and the lyrics are by veteran lyricist Gulzar. As the film has premiered today on Netflix, it has been receiving positive responses from social media users.

It began streaming on Netflix from August 5. The film is a dark comedy and features Vijay Varma and Shefali Shah along with Alia in the lead. The Gull Boy ...

We don't have to take a flight or go to film festivals, it's just a unique way of consuming content." All those lovely words that you want to hear after the movie, they had all that to say." They have that attitude that they want me to keep myself grounded, but they were extremely surprised and impressed. The Gull Boy actress has bankrolled Darlings under her banner Eternal Sunshine, which is a dark comedy directed by debutant Jasmeet K Reen. In an exclusive chat with IndiaToday.in, Alia Bhatt spoke about the reason for releasing the film on OTT instead of theatres. As we all know the world has become a very small place thanks to content lying on OTT. We are consuming content of all languages - Korean, Spanish, South Indian, etc. Then in 2020, the world went into lockdown, but from the very beginning, we said that this is that kind of film which on a platform like Netflix will be very good, for various reasons.

Darlings, starring Alia Bhatt, Shefali Shah, Vijay Varma and Roshan Mathew, has been co-produced by Shah Rukh's Red Chillies Entertainment.

But I feel we have a lovely film and u r the soul and sunshine of all things Darlings.” The Indian Express’ Shubhra Gupta gave the movie a 2.5-star rating. Ahead of Darlings’ release, Shah Rukh Khan had shared how anxious he is about the film.

Darlings, starring Alia Bhatt, Shefali Shah, Vijay Varma and Roshan Mathew, has been co-produced by Shah Rukh's Red Chillies Entertainment.

But I feel we have a lovely film and u r the soul and sunshine of all things Darlings.” Ahead of Darlings’ release, Shah Rukh Khan had shared how anxious he is about the film. The Indian Express’ Shubhra Gupta gave the movie a 2.5-star rating.

In the movie, the intricacies of Chawl's life are emphasised; you get a sense of a hundred small hustles running parallel. The songs, too, are a banger, ...

The intricacies of Chawl's life are emphasised; you get a sense of a hundred small hustles running parallelly. Alia is brilliant as Badrunissa. As in Gully Boy (2019) and Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022), her Bombaiyaa accent is spot-on (with an eccentric ‘S’ added to the ends of English words). While her characters in the aforementioned films were defined by their assertiveness, Badru is a bit of a muddle. The first hour is a gripping yet excruciating loop of Hamza’s violations of his wife. Even after she has restrained, drugged up and tortured Hamza, she remains weirdly open to his machinations and appeals (or gives a good impression of it). Shefali is entertaining as Shamsu, “Badappan gaya kan khujane,” she shoots—though the winner, clearly, is Vijay Varma. There are more layers to his Hamza than all one-note abusive husbands from Hindi films combined. The songs, too, are a banger, especially the wild and swooning ‘Pleaj!’. He’s a baiter and a master manipulator, frighteningly aware of his wife’s hopes and dreams and emotional weak points and using them to his advantage. Badrunissa (Alia Bhatt) rushes to a movie date with her boyfriend, Hamza (Vijay Varma). She waits and waits, missing the show. Going by the trailer of Darlings, you’d expect this twist to come much earlier on in the film. Hamza, a jerk and an alcoholic, routinely hits his wife, triggered by anything from slips in her cooking to a genuine concern for his well-being. “Government job leke aya (I found a government job),” he tells her. Equally fascinating, at least to me, are the supporting players who populate the world of this film. Alia Bhatt, Shefali Shah, Vijay Varma and Roshan Mathew headline this seductive black comedy set in Mumbai. But that’s just the start.

The highly-anticipated Alia Bhatt's film Darlings is now streaming on Netflix. Directed by Jasmeet K Reen, the film also features Shefali Shah and Vijay ...

The production design and attention to detail are commendable, as is the pace of editing. Told in a linear, simplistic fashion, the film is about an abuser exploiting his partner over a man versus woman battle,” reviewed Times of India. Coming to the hullabaloo that such films create further prejudices against men when gender laws are already flawed, well Darlings is centred around women, but on an emotional level it does have some appeal for both the sexes,” reviewed Bollywoodlife. Darlings secured 3 out of 5 stars by NDTV. Shefali Shah, cast as a woman who has stopped worrying about the world and the impositions it makes on women, serves as the perfect foil,” reviewed NDTV. Alia Bhatt reveals yet again the full range of her natural ability to get into the skin of a character.

Darlings movie review: Alia Bhatt gives one of her best performances in Darlings, a story about a woman's revenge on her violent husband. | Bollywood.

But when tables turn and Hamza is the supposed victim at the hands of his merciless wife and her mother, violence against men somehow appears to look like a joke. But in parts, the story does bother you when domestic violence is used as a ploy to trigger laughs — a woman sticking by her husband despite being abused, a man showing no sign of regret or for his actions, silent spectators shown as caricatures. He's cruel and unreasonable and his character, I felt, is written in the most realistic manner. From that point, Darlings shows how a middle-class mother-daughter duo (Shah and Bhatt), who is caught in their own circumstantial hang-ups, gradually discovers their inner strength to survive in a city like Mumbai, battling all odds. The husband is an alcoholic who holds no remorse for assaulting his wife every night, the wife is head over heels in love with the man and doesn't mind cooking breakfast — the staple bun omelette — every morning for him with bruises all over — this may be a regular occurrence in many Indian households, but rarely gets talked about the way it should. Badrunissa Shaikh aka Badru (Bhatt) is smitten by roadside romeo Hamza Shaikh (Vijay Varma), and marries him as soon as he secures himself a government job.

Jasmeet's debut outing throws light on domestic abuse through the lens of a dark comedy. How Badru, played by Alia, decides to stop being the.Darlings.

Her choice of scripts is among the best in the industry. Kudos to Alia Bhatt for letting a woman tell a woman's story and not opt for a man's perception of her troubles. As for Jasmeet, her launch is a laudable one. Hope to see a daring production house in Eternal that isn't afraid to get political with its choice of content. No. Is it a smart genre to talk about a serious issue like domestic abuse? He is in complete control of the mood shifts. Is it the best dark comedy out there? This way, Jasmeet ensures the audience assumes the role of a neighbour, who is both privy and not to the troubles of the couple next door, just like in a chawl. Badru's mother Shamshu (Shefali Shah) lives a couple of doors away from her and just wants her to see through the situation clearly and act on it. It is the performances, as mentioned earlier, that ensure quality to an otherwise ordinary story. The conviction rate is abysmal mainly due to the confusion on what amounts to domestic abuse. Hamza has a government job and Badru is a dreamer with a five-year plan that cannot go wrong if things move along as she intends.

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 6 (ANI): Like many, superstar Shah Rukh Khan also loves to “Netflix and chill” during his free time.

Shah Rukh played the role of a psychiatrist called Dr. Jehangir Khan. While treating Alia Bhatt in the film, Shah Rukh’s character gave important life lessons to the audience with his powerful dialogues. For the unversed, Alia and SRK share a cordial relationship ever since the two starred together in ‘Dear Zindagi’, which was released in 2016. In a tweet, he had written, “Lil one I am also so anxious that u shared the responsibility of Eternal Sunshine Productions first film with me…that I will be biting my nails till it releases.