Common Sense Media Review
By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Abused wife seeks revenge in offensive, violent comedy.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 14+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
Darlings
What's the Story?
In DARLINGS, Badru (Alia Bhatt) marries the glib and charming Hamza (Vijay Varma), and in no time he's drinking excessively and hitting her brutally. Like many battered women, she refuses to call the police. Her mother, Shamshu (Shefali Shah), who was also abused by Badru's father, urges Badru to leave Hamza. But even when they file a complaint with the police, who for ineffective comedic purposes are played as idiots, and Hamza is thrown in jail for three years, Badru lets herself be sweet-talked into withdrawing the charges immediately. "Why would I abuse you if I didn't love you?" he asks, and she melts. Hamza escalates his abuse. Even after he quits drinking for health reasons, he throws her down stairs and causes multiple injuries and a miscarriage. As the attempts at comedy continue, Badru and Shamshu wonder if they should kill Hamza or just tie him up and drug him with injectable sedatives. They try both, another turn of events played for comedy.
Is It Any Good?
The idea of playing domestic abuse for comedy is offensive and unjustifiable, and for those reasons Darlings fails badly from the start. Aiming for humor, the movie is often flippant about abuse, which feels utterly inappropriate. Why does it take two hours for Badru to figure out that if she does to Hamza what he did to her, she is just as bad as he is? Hamza is a terrible, unredeemable person, but once Badru starts plotting his torture and even murder, how is she any better? And how is any of it funny? How does making the cops stupid help? Would she really rather murder her husband than imprison him?
Other ugly points of view are treated as acceptable. Someone says that the cure for India's population problem is a program of forced sterilization. Someone else praises China's one-child policy, which resulted in the murder of unwanted babies. A woman says that men who hit women are cowards. Why aren't women who hit men just as cowardly? (By the way, the man in question promptly responds to the "coward" accusation by giving the woman a bloody nose.) It's ridiculous to imagine that an abused woman who can't let the police take her husband to jail is capable of tying him to railroad tracks and leaving him to get mangled by a train. In that way, the movie mocks victims of abuse unforgivably.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about why a woman who ends up trying to murder her abusive husband couldn't just let the police jail him for abuse.
Movies about domestic violence often highlight battered women's reluctance to report husbands to the police. When the plot moves beyond that reluctance to a more vengeful scenario, does the attempt at comedy seem appropriate? Why, or why not?
It takes two hours and 15 minutes for a woman to realize that treating her husband as violently as he has treated her turns her into the same kind of terrible person that her husband is. Do you think her actions make sense? Why, or why not?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : August 5, 2022
- Cast : Alia Bhatt , Vijay Varma , Shefali Shah
- Director : Jasmeet K Reen
- Inclusion Information : Female Movie Actor(s) , Indian/South Asian Movie Actor(s)
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Comedy
- Run time : 134 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- Last updated : August 13, 2022
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