Darling

After the highly talked ‘RGV Ki Aag’ the ace director RamGopalVarma is coming with his new film ‘Darling’ just within a 2 weeks gap.Highly talked in the sense, the director has got a huge bunch of negative remarks & worse comments from the critics & public for remaking ‘Sholay’. I had read many of those reviews. Among all those what I felt, I was the only person to praise Varma for his
excellent direction & all.


Still I remains in that stand. You should keep in mind, that I told you not to compare ‘RGV Ki Aag’ with any of the old classics, you can watch it as a new Hindi film with a malayalee actor Mohanlal as the hero supported by some hindi actors and the veteran Bachan as the villain.


Any way leave it, but RamGopalVarma’s new film deals with a different horror subject. Before entering the cinema hall, my mind was passing through the memories of this director’s previous horror version, ‘Bhoot’.The haunted feelings & experiences of the night, I watched ‘Bhoot’ still there and I don’t want to remember it often.Inside the theatre while watching that film even at my age of 27, I was closing eyes & ears for some of the scenes like a small child.


But here while watching ‘Darling’ you don’t have to behave childishly, since the treatment of the film is like that only. Here Eesha Deol plays the ghost character. She is being murdered by his boss played by Fardeen Khan. He is living with his wife, played by Isha Gopikar. She got a different appearance, Isha is done well in a typical house-wife role.

After being killed the heroine is chasing the hero everywhere to take revenge. The director should have treated this in a more serious manner. But here he has tried to sail his boat with the wind, he gave a comic appearance for most of the scenes in which hero is being cornered by the ghost. Such scenes are also not shown in a beleivable way.


It is happening like that of a usual hindi film. I strongly feel that, this is not RGV’s track of telling such a story. But in this movie field we have to do compromises; also the music company TSeries is working with him for the first time as the co-producer.Another main challenge here is the chemistry between the hero & the heroine.


The ghost character played by Esha Deol has done exceptionally well, but on the other side the affected character played by Fardeen Khan proved that he is a wrong choice. He is over reactive and not behaving according to the situations. In some of the scenes he has acted well, but in such scenes also his dubbing (dialogue delivery) is not blended well.


As a whole you can see the style and flavor of RamGopalVarma in the scenes. The scenes featuring Zakkir Hussain as the friend of FardeenKhan and also the scenes in which Upendra Limaye as the cop with his assistant lady questioning the hero shows the signature of RamGopalVarma.
The kind of shots he placed is neatly executed with the help of cinematographer Amit Roy, Background score by Prasanna-Sekhar is ok, Music director Himesh Reshammiya also contributed 2 numbers in his style.


If you have not watched the film ‘Bhoot’ in a DTS theatre, I will say its a great miss…since it is one of the best horror films ever produced in India. In that sense ‘Darling’ is not at all in my hit list.

Rating : 2 / 5