Darlings: Bollywood’s dark comedy on domestic violence wows India

Domestic violence is no laughing matter, but a dark comedy loading on Netflix on the topic is entertaining audiences in Indian.

Starring Bollywood actress Alia Bhatt, Shefali Shah plus Vijay Verma within the lead roles, Darlings is the story of a young Muslim few in love : and violence and revenge.

The film opens with the enthusiasts – Badrunissa (Bhatt) and Hamza (Verma) – deciding to obtain married, but theirs is not a happily-ever-after story.

Three years to the marriage, the couple have made a home within a lower middle-class housing tenement, but Badrunissa is sleeping with the enemy.

He’s the classic abuser, whom batters her each night and says apologies in the morning. His justification for hitting – and her acceptance of it – is love. “Yes I am just a bastard but I hit you only because I love you, ” he says.

And she is a victim whom lives in denial, assuming that he’ll arrive around if only the lady can make him end drinking or in case she has a child to cement their partnership.

But when the savagery continues and he lastly crosses a line, rage takes over plus halfway through the film, the tables are usually turned – the abused, with a great deal of help from her mother Shamshunissa (played by Shefali Shah), becomes the abuser.

The mother and child kidnap the spouse, hold him hostage in his own home and begin doing to your pet what he had done to her.

Director Jasmeet E Reen, who co-wrote the script together with actor Parveez Sheikh, told the BBC that the story came to her as an one-line idea, born away from a mother-daughter banter.

“My idea involved a mother-daughter duo who have dreams, yet there is something wrong – the little girl’s marriage is away from. So , they come plan whacky ideas regarding fixing her relationship. ”

The mother can be “cynical” and understands from experience that will her son-in-law will not change and she won’t want her daughter to suffer exactly the same fate that the lady did. She advices the daughter to leave him : or even kill your pet.

“But it’s the little girl’s journey – since she travels from tolerance to thinking about revenge to knowledge where she strolls away from violence, ” Ms Reen says.

The film, which began streaming on Netflix globally specifically a week back, offers received mostly reviews that are positive from critics plus wowed audiences.

Based on Netflix, it is doing very well not just in India but in a number of other countries too.

Darlings has had “the top global opening actually for a non-English Indian native film” and audiences have spent “more than 10 million hours” watching it in its opening weekend, the streaming platform said in a statement to the BBC.

The film “is currently trending in the top 10 in 16 countries in the Americas, Africa and Asia including in the UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, Kenya and Trinidad and Tobago”, it added.

The reasons designed for interest in the movie are not difficult to measure – Bhatt is one of the top Bollywood actress of the day with a dedicated fan following; the film is backed by superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s creation company; and the general appeal of the topic of domestic violence.

According to the Planet Health Organization, 1 in three females globally face gender-based violence, most of it inflicted by intimate partners. The quantities for India are similar with domestic violence consistently being one of the most reported violent crime against women every year.

In 2020 – the latest year for which official criminal offense data is available — police received complaints from 112, 292 women, which stops working to about one particular every five minutes. But survivors here also need to battle with the tradition of silence and also an overwhelming approval meant for such violence.

According to a recent govt survey, more than 40% of women and 38% of men stated it was ok for any man to beat his wife when she disrespected the girl in-laws, neglected the girl home or kids, went out without telling him, refused intercourse or didn’t cook properly.

That’s why, when Hamza beats up his wife on the smallest of pretexts, the nearby neighbours in their congested tenement housing society change a deaf hearing to her cries.

Ms Reen says while researching for the film, she found that “most family members are okay with domestic violence, people learn to live with it”.

“I spoke to a lot of women, survivors, wedded women who would baby crib and cry, who seem to knew that they had been being manipulated, however they lived on within hope that the man would reform. Individuals act only when they – or someone they love – gets affected individually. ”

Prior to its release last week, Darlings had discovered itself in the midst of the controversy with men’s rights activists accusing the film of promoting violence towards men and describing Bhatt as “the Native indian Amber Heard” — a reference to the particular Hollywood actress who seem to recently lost her domestic violence situation against her ex-husband Johnny Depp.

Save Indian Family Foundation, a men’s legal rights group, tweeted that “thousands of man victims of household violence were traumatised after watching the trailer” and called for a boycott of Alia Bhatt and her films.

Ms Reen refuses accusations that her film promotes domestic violence against men.

“Domestic violence is just not a gender issue, it happens to males too. It’s a serious issue and we possess looked at it along with sensitivity and with empathy, ” she informed the BBC.

“We know that violence is not the answer and we are not promoting violence towards any gender. Actually the message of the film is anti-violence and if you’ve observed the film, you’d know it. If you’ve not really seen the film and criticise this, then what can I say? ”

Several among the audiences also took to social media to support the film. A few said they had appreciated watching it and were moved because of it; survivors wrote which they felt empowered right after watching it and several pointed out that in a patriarchal society like India, it was mostly females who faced domestic violence.

“Darlings is not against males but it’s regarding the naturalisation of the informal sexism and stop against the perpetuated patriarchy in society, inch wrote Deep Jaiswal.

“We focus a lot on the safety of ladies on streets but forget to acknowledge that the home & circle of trust is sometimes more dangerous , ” he added.

Ms Reen says she’s happy with the particular response the film has generated.

“A film is made to entertain and engage, yet I believe all artwork should say something, and our movie speaks to people regarding an issue that is really sensitive.

“What we wanted to do was to start the conversation. Our character types represent and mirror society, and we wished the film to become a conversation starter about domestic violence and I think we have succeeded in doing that. ”