Social media was full of ‘Darlings’ reviews. For awhile I didn’t even know what the movie was about, so I really didn’t bother until a dear friend shared that she was triggered by it and stopped watching. I took her experience to heart and knew that the plot would bring up stuff for me too. A few weeks back, my partner watched it and my knee jerk response was that I won’t watch it and I guessed that I’d feel sick. He agreed that it would be reliving the trauma.
Last night, I thought of giving it a try. I mean, I would always switch it off, right?
I was being lured to by the harrowing theme of you know, maybe, just maybe, after all these reviews, the movie might be showing a real scenario and somehow, just somehow, I might feel that certain experiences would be validated? I still don’t know what my reason to watch it was, but I watched it. But you know, sometimes, those things that you should avoid have an allure that entices you to take one bite, one tiny bite, and no harm done? I was feeling all that…
I looked at the movie cast and thought, ‘Well, if Shefali Shah is in it, the plot must be dark enough to be real.’ Let me see what this is about.
Six minutes and ten seconds into the show (I’m guessing intro credits included), I had to pause. My jaw was tight, my breathing was shallow, my mouth went dry and my gut clenched. I felt physically ill and could feel the bile rising in my throat. I had known that giving this movie my time would be a bad idea.
A very bad idea.
To set the record straight, my review of this movie is based on having been there and with the wisdom, clairvoyance, clairaudience and clairsentience of hindsight. I didn’t even need to know the theme of the movie to know what was going to happen in the first few minutes. The disrespect and the absence of value for her space, effort, time was blatant. He unceremonious and remorseless manipulation of her feelings by dangling the carrot of marriage and babies and a home… a future together… it. was. all. right. there.
Yet, she stayed.
And there will be a zillion A-holes making wise ass comments like, ‘Why is she still staying with him, then?’ Placing the onus of the survivor… sigh! Making it her burden to explain how maybe she still thought or believed that this was a hiccup that all relationships go through? Or was it to feel guilty about expecting a happy ever after? Or maybe a happy till tomorrow? Was she to be held responsible to hope and seek a loving, secure relationship?
This story was also compounded by multiple themes – almost making it an excuse in some places. He is an alcoholic. Alcoholism is a disease. He needs our pity & our sympathy. He needs her support and care to get off it. Well, if it means a couple of blows, punches, broken ribs and a miscarriage – well, this is between the husband and wife…
Sorry, but I cannot write this in coherent order. There is no beginning.. and I sense myself going in loops.
I found the humor grating. I didn’t laugh at all throughout the movie. Not once. My daughter came to the room twice to tell me to please stop watching it as it was clearly upsetting me. I didn’t watch to carry it to the next day. I would allow the poison to be drawn in one go.
That humor, was not funny. I found it insulting. I found a mentally agitated young woman’s desperation being churned as fodder for gaping bystanders to shake their heads and say, ‘Look at the stupidity she is doing! Why can’t she just leave him?’ The humor and the ridiculous music downplayed trauma, grief and brutal fear for one’s life into a rubbish piece of badly written jokes. To me, they were not funny to me.
The humor downplayed violence, mental anguish, trauma, miscarriage, suicide all that to feed an audience of bystanders who didn’t really know or care about what happens behind closed doors.
What they did show well was manipulation and gaslighting, even if it fell on deaf ears. They showed well the trembling of her hands when he bit on the second stone in his rice. They showed well the reflexive clasping of her throat when she knew what was coming. They showed well the brutality of an abusive and violent person. They were also spot on in showing how an abuser would work towards isolating his ‘prey’ from social and financial support.
The most hard hitting scene for me, was when Hamza hits Shamshu, his mother-in-law, in the cab – abusing the family of the victim is brutal and often not expressed well. I can only hope the message reached a fair number of minds.
But, in my very honest opinion, they failed miserably at showing the effects on Badru’s body, mind and spirit. There was a tendency to not showcase her grief and instead center on his abuse instead. The abuse was centered – the abuser was centered. It is typical, isn’t it? To shy away from uncomfortable truths of a woman’s experience of pain and horror?
This was perhaps a teachable movie – to raise awareness of a cornucopia of social issues – I don’t know… To me, it lacked. Just by educating the masses about Section 498A, one doesn’t really push the needle that required public outcry and a movement that motivates society to care for its members.
I felt for Badru – she was just a child trapped in the clutches of a monster. She’s right to take charge of her respect in her own hands, but the philosophy of greatness and the higher moral ground is a psychological nightmare. I can’t think how it can happen overnight – I’m glad it did, but… it just watered down the reality of domestic violence, intimate partner violence, violence against women and gender based violence.
It also misplaced the story by setting it in a lower income chawl with lesser educated individuals of a certain community. Violence occurs in all segments of society. Worse stuff gets perpetrated in upper middle class and wealthy society units. There the façade to save face for Page 3 insets is strong, the walls sufficiently sound proofed, gated communities provide the anonymity and isolation sufficient to get away with ‘this is between husband & wife, we will sort it’
Like I said, I feel a bit incoherent in my ramble. Trauma doesn’t resolve itself over night. It rewinds itself at various times and we learn and unlearn over and over again.
I don’t have a textbook conclusion to this post today… it just is a visceral outpouring. The movie was a trigger and I am still experiencing the effects of giving it my time. To those who have given it rave reviews for the effort of highlighting this issue, well… I don’t know… There must be better ways. But if those reviews were coming from a third person, unaffected place, then I really think they must rethink their ‘position’ before dissing off those of us who found the movie triggering, belittling and insensitive in many ways.
Now I need to recover from this movie. This is why I hate watching TV…
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