Review of Darlings / डार्लिंग्स, directed by Jasmeet K. Reen

There was a hot minute in June 2024 where I was going through movies and books like it was nobody’s business. I was funemployed at the time pretty much, solely relying on my social media management and blog income to survive, and I was waiting for my flight to head off to Korea for an intensive program. That meant I had way too much free time to read said books and movies.

Darlings was one of the movies I watched during this time. My blog has been popping lately in the past few months because of how much I’ve been watching and reading, and that’s with taking a few months off to go to South Korea. If you like movie, television, or books review, and little narratives about my adventures all over the world, this might be the blog for you!

A goal of mine throughout the rest of 2024 and 2025 is to watch more Indian cinema and television. Not just Hindi, but Telugu and Bengali work is something that I’m also interested in exploring more. As I type this, I’m waiting for my visa to India, so fingers crossed all goes well!

I’m starting to ramble, so let’s get into the review and summary.

When a woman’s abusive husband goes too far, she decides to get revenge against him.

Our main character in this movie is Badru, whose husband, Hamza, is an alcoholic. When he drinks, he goes to beat Badru, and so she starts thinking that if she can get her husband to quit alcohol, he’s going to become a better husband overall. She then starts telling him that she wants a child, but he kind of dodges her statements of wanting one.

That said, everyone else knows about their problems because it’s not like he’s quiet about hitting her. When Badru decides to go to a renovation meeting for the building, despite what Hamza wants her to do, he shows up angrily at the meeting and then takes her home to beat her.

A handyman of sorts, Zulfi, sees what is happening after visiting Badru and her mother Shamshu. He decides to file a complaint against Hamza for her, which gets Hamza arrested. However, he promises Badru that he will stop drinking once they have a kid in order to get out, and she lies to the officers in order to free him.

Later on, Hamza learns the drinking is ruining his health and liver, and that Badru is pregnant. He decides to pretend to stop drinking in order to keep his promise in some ways, and at the same time, he threatens his way around to discover who reported him.

When he finds out it was Zulfi, and that Badru knew about this, he pushes her down a flight of steps while beating her. This ends up with her having a miscarriage, which is the last straw for Badru to realize he’s not a good person. In her hospital bed, she decides he’s going to get a taste of his own medicine.

With the help of her mother, she forces him to take sleeping pills and ties him up. They decide to torture him, but then his boss randomly shows up, as he’s concerned about Hamza’s absence. The duo tells the boss that his father died and he went back to his village, but then give up on that lie and clarify he is sick.

When Zulfi is watching over him, though, he manages to escape. The police then show up looking for him because of how he hasn’t showed up to work. They think that Zulfi and Badru are having an affair, but then Zulfi narrowly escapes being arrested by claiming he’s in love with Shamshu. They kiss as Hamza shows up to the police station to report what happened.

However, the cops don’t believe him. The trio shows up and takes him home, then plan what to do next. One proposal is that they should tie him to a railway and leave him to die, but then Badru, feeling guilty, unties him just before a train is about to run him over.

Hamza swears revenge, but then backs into a passing train, effectively offing himself. Shamshu then tells Badru about her father, who also abused her, and that she killed Badru’s father in revenge for everything he did.

Badru later goes to the police department to file a missing claim, but no one can find him. They hold a funeral, and Badru imagines her life free without her husband as she goes around the city.

Overall Thoughts

I love a good black comedy, and I didn’t expect Alia Bhatt to be in one like this. I enjoyed it throughout because we love a good story of revenge against awful husbands.

I don’t know if I would return to this movie, though. It was good in the moment and entertaining, but I felt like it was lacking something at the end. It was satisfying, but the storyline could have gone a bit deeper perhaps.

Perhaps I watch too many revenge films, but this one was too tame for me I guess. It’s a good way to go about it for Hindi cinema—I don’t think I have watched anything like this before from Indian cinema.

Watch this film if you’re interested in the plot! I saw it on American Netflix.

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