Change Your Image
radknight28
Reviews
Darlings (2022)
Brilliant. Couldn't look away for two hours.
I'll just preface this by saying - no part of this movie glorifies violence against men. If anything, it provides a balanced perspective when it comes to domestic violence. I found myself sympathizing with Vijay Varma's character at some points (oddly enough), which goes to show the accurate depiction of manipulation and gaslighting and the role it plays to perpetuate abuse.
That being said, the performances were on point. The scorpion and the toad story takes center stage in the second half and you see how the characters in the film relate to the story without it being too "on the nose".
The script is really well-written, the dingy Mumbai aesthetic acts like a perfect backdrop with nothing that feels out of place. Some of the twists were quite unexpected and at no point did I feel like it was too long or too dragged. Everything that happens tied together very well in the end. 9/10.
Gehraiyaan (2022)
Cringeworthy and poorly-written. Trying too hard to be "deep" while precisely lacking any semblance of depth.
Doobey has been creating waves for weeks before the actual movie released and it's commendable that the person who edited the music video made the movie seem exciting. But it was far from it, none of these characters had any actual motives for acting the way they did. None of their actions seemed to fall in line with what was previously established about them (which wasn't much to begin with) The so-called "deep", "complex" backstories each character had fell flat too since they seemed to come off as excuses rather than actual explanations.
The dialogues seemed so off, I found myself questioning whether people actually talk like this. Maybe an OTT release is subjected to comparatively low censorship but does that mean the word "f-ck" gets thrown around like confetti in every dialogue? It just comes across as lazy writing.
I was hoping there'd be no glorification of infidelity and we'd be able to at least empathize with the characters for cheating on their partners. None of the problems they faced were beyond the ordinary and didn't justify their motives to cheat. Are we supposed to believe that actual grown-up adults approach their problems like 16-year old's?
I wouldn't blame the actors for the bad performances since it was evident that they weren't given too much to work with anyway. All of the glitz and glamour, none of the substance.