An ironic plot of marital abuse that ends in a cathartic close, Netflix's Darlings is a ‘comic tragedy in disguise’

Darlings speak volumes of marital abuse that's well- depicted through torturing episodes.

Out of the movies that top the weekly list, Darlings is commendable and exceptionally jaw-dropping. It mocks the traditional way of hegemonic treatment. The storyline kickstarts soon after Hamza played by Vijay Varma, gets the job of a railway ticket collector, Badru (played by Alia Bhatt) and Hamza’s affair results in a love marriage, a complete misnomer. He becomes a regular drinker, and a slight provocation fuels his anger, even as slight as rice
not cooked right. His anger shows up in the form of ferocious violence towards his better half. He bashes her black and blue for varied reasons during the first half of the film, and this extends throughout till the moment of her miscarriage owing to his pushing the pregnant Badru downstairs.

After losing her child, she gathers the courage to overcome her subjugation and to teach him a lesson by paying back in the same coin. The initiation of an unanticipated revengeful plot makes this movie an edge-seat watch. The nuances are exceptionally well-presented. It highlights the feministically comical curve of the movie. The mother-daughter duo sets the tale on fire. How couldn’t one speak about their commendable chemistry and later their combat against Hamza?

Also Read: With questions raised about this dark comedy, Darlings on Netflix received quite a mixed review from the Janta!

Watch the trailer here!

Love, violence, and revenge are the thematic backdrops of the story with a destined end. The direction and screenplay are worth applause. The underlying frog-scorpio fable related by her mother gives a semantic effect to the abrupt turn. Badru represents the feeble frog. One cannot fail to feel the blindfolded trust a woman has in her spouse. Badru’s trust in Hamza that he would change someday and quit ill-treating her collapses devastatingly. The helplessness and suppression of an Indian woman show up evidently in the screenplay.

Darlings, after all, also has some open-ended questions that hang on the viewer's minds. On the contrary, it also highlights in a conversation that 'women are mistreated only because they let men do so', which raises a lot of other misconceptions and might not be right in all cases. Other than that, it also doesn’t really focus on other options of quitting an abusive marriage which could have given the plot the informative edge.

That being said, with all its best and bad parts, it’s still no exaggeration to say that the movie ranks high with its extraordinary dark-comic theme and a great cathartic close that gives goosebumps; it is undoubtedly a ‘must-watch’.

Submitted by Nikahath Shaikh

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