Darling (2007)

The greatest movie ever!

Best movie of this year hands down!

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

...instead of watching this horrible film. Even Esha Deol repeats a line to Fardeen Khan, telling him to close his eyes like a dumb ostrich. I tell people now to close their eyes if this film is anywhere in sight. The reason why I decided to give it a go was because it was a Ram Gopal Verma film. I haven't seen 'Ki Aag' and I didn't expect 'Darling' to be this bad. It is quite known how Ram Gopal loves the Hollywood film 'Fatal Attraction' (which is a terrible film IMO) and 'Darling' falls on the same line...except this time it's with a ghost. The film itself is painfully slow paced. The story isn't interesting to begin with (though there is a twist in the end) and I wonder how drunk the writer was in order to come up with such tripe. The performances are miserable. Fardeen Khan just doesn't know how to act. He should quit asap. Esha Deol is quite bad as usual (this time she's a loud zombie) and Isha Koppikar is miscast. The love scene with the three of them looks as if it's handled by an amateur and there are some unintentionally funny moments e.g. Esha Deol slapping Fardeen Khan around. Zakir Hussain clearly shows his lack of interest. The songs are terrible (thanks to Himesh Reshamiya's horrible voice) and they only slow things down in what is already a boring movie. What happened to Ram Gopal Verma? He seems to have completely lost it and how will he ever re-emerge from his self-created mess? Avoid this one at all costs.

I kind of like Darling, I love it when direction and writing is so shoddy that I can tell what's going to happen and instead of insulting my intelligence the director makes me feel special by doing everything that I thought would happen (ie the ending). RGV has lost the plot, he needs to go into hiding and think of something special and even when he does that, his film will still tank simply because the audience isn't going to trust him anymore. It's going to take at least two or three films (even if they are all good) before the audience touches his films once again.The film itself is dreadfully slow paced. I have no idea what genre the film is (even after watching it) so I think I'll view it as a comedy/horror/drama. The writing is rushed beyond belief and is hindered by the non-acting of Esha Deol and Fardeen Khan (they should stop and find something else to do), when they look like they're supposed to be passionate and kissing each other they come off looking as two drunken teenagers stumbling around. Another thing is that Esha's character is hardly established, so – there's no real reason for the audience to feel anything for him. Khan's character is a boob that cheats on his wife (without any reason, so without providing one – there's no room for him to be a sympathetic character, why even bother if you're not going to have at least one sympathetic main character?). Though the film starts to pick up pace once Deol's character is re-introduced in the film as a ghost.Break down is like this.Deol is pregnant but Khan is married. Khan wants an abortion. Deol wants the baby and attacks Khan in a rage. Khan protects himself by shoving her, yes by shoving a pregnant woman. She trips and falls, hits her head and dies. With her eyes wide open.End breakdown.I didn't mind the music; the videos are introduced through fairly interesting but used ideas such as a dream and watching a film within a film. Either way, they brought nothing to the story.The writing makes me wonder what the person was smoking. It kind of reminded me of some play by Noel Coward that I can't remember (in which a man is haunted by his dead wife, so if you know what I'm talking about please say what it is). There are a couple of hilarious scenes such as Deol's ghost hiding under the table and touching Khan's new secretary on the leg making her think that Khan's character is …well…molesting her. Other than that, the laughs come from the dismal direction and awful writing and horrendous acting.One thing to watch out for…Deol's ghosts father comes to pay Khan a visit, he begs him to use his power so they can find Deol's character. And RGV decides that it's an episode of NYPD Blue and begins to zoom in and out of close ups like the world is going to end tomorrow (either that or the camera man had taken some sort of illegal substance before the scene was shot).Overall…2/10. One star is because you have to vote a one, and the second is because the film provided some unintentional laughs.So this, I'd actually say watch it if you want to see something so horrible that its actually strangely…passable (hope you take note of the fact I didn't use good).

Like his earlier movie "Bhoot", RGV exploits the idea of ghost in the background of a society which is apparently rational, doesn't believe in ghosts but believes in ghosts. The Bengali children's fiction writer Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay has exploited in many of his ghost novels for children the contradictory urban mindset which refuses to believe ghosts, but can't stop being afraid of it. In RGV's "Darling", the fear is coupled with the protagonist's helplessness where he knows that neither his wife nor a psychiatrist will believe that a ghost is troubling him. And that fear is spiced up with his consciousness of his guilt.Aditya's behaviour after the discovery that Gita has got slightly killed reminds one of RGV's controversial Telugu thriller "Madhyanam Hathhya" where the protagonist Ravi kills his suspicious wife equally accidentally and struggles to dispose off the mortal remains. The tension that followed, starting from the stone that sparks off Aditya's wheel, the axe that lands up in front of their door that doesn't puzzle Aswini and the cool questions of his perverted office mate makes one suspect that Gita didn't actually die. Maybe her pregnancy story was a prank, she hold an oxygen inhaling device in her underwear before she was carried to the grave and maybe Aditya's friend and wife are all aware of the events and are trying to collectively play a game with Aditya. A surprise. That belief was almost a conviction when Aditya and his kid could listen to the "bees saal baad" song, but Aswini said that she couldn't hear anything of that sort.After few minutes when we see Geeta again, as the ghost, we understand that RGV is going supernatural keeping the background rational. I didn't understand why the psychiatrist was shown in such a bad light. Srinivasa Rao Kota was a real bad choice for a psychiatrist, if RGV's aim was NOT to put the profession in bad light. Was he ever treated like this by a money-mongering psychiatrist when he needed some real help? Maybe. But it was a poor joke.For Esha as Geeta it was probably a remake of the 2006 Vikram Bhatt movie "Ankahee" where her character Kavya used to say, "This life is not working its time for a fresh start". So, the Darling "fresh start" wasn't that unpredictable.

Well, the previews said the movie will not only thrill you but also make you laugh. Problem is- Not only comic scenes are funny but horrifying scenes also belong to the same genre (Comedy).The scenes that were intended to be thriller for the audience were either not horrifying or if they were, they were overshadowed by poor dialogs. Other problem is the performance of the lead cast. Isha does well but not esha. Though her acting looks improved but she is not a good ghost. She should have been made to see about 10-15 good horror movies before acting here. She looks totally out of sorts as a bhootni.Other disappointment is Fardeen. Though body language is good. Dialog delivery and lack of emotion problem is still very much there like his previous movies. Also, the film is quite slowly paced. I believe such film should not exceed more than 100 minutes. and it was about 150.Despite that, I've to admit that the film was somewhat entertaining. The Fardeen's friend was quite good with his catchy and entertaining one-liners. Moreover, the movie does manage to keep you interested to an extent.So, a good time-pass flick for a boring evening but would be better off if you can wait for it to come on a movie channel. But one thing's for sure, this low budget entertainer from RGV will earn more money for the makers than his previous high-profile b-grader (Aag).