Jaw Dropping And Unusually Cathartic, Darlings Is A Must Watch Black Tragi-Comedy!

Trigger Warning: This deals with domestic violence and may be triggering for survivors.

Darlings, a ‘tragic-comedy in disguise’ speaks volumes about marital abuse by showing a well crafted depiction of torture and violence in a marriage. The film mocks the traditional way of hegemonic treatment. Out of the movies that top the weekly list, this one is commendable and exceptionally jaw-dropping.

*Spoilers Alert

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 him 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 feministic comical curve of the movie. The mother-daughter duo sets the tale on fire. One can’t speak enough about their commendable chemistry and later their combat against Hamza.

A dark tale of love that turns into abuse

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.

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One cannot fail to feel the blind 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 shows up evidently in the screenplay.

Darlings has some open-ended questions that hang on the viewer’s minds. 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 top on the list with its extraordinary dark-comic theme and a great cathartic close that gives goosebumps; it is undoubtedly a ‘must-watch’ movie.

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