Review: Darling, Jaane
Kahan Gaye woh Ghost
9 September, 2007
BY SHUBIR RISHI
And they would be darlings...
…if only any of them could act
…if only I hadn’t seen too much
Korean horror
…if only I was carrying a pack
of super strength Exedrins
…if only I gave a hoot or two
about ghosts
…and if only this movie was made by
the Ramsey Brothers
And yet again, I came out, with a
blinding headache. I can’t decide
whether to blame it on Fardeen Khan,
who confuses me every time I look at
him (whether to concentrate on his
dialogues, or his double chins), or
Esha Deol (for the same reason), or
the
sudden-jerk-movement-camera-actions,
or the numerous screaming matches.
So anyway, lets get on with the
story, shall we? Aditya Soman (Fardeen
Khan – stutters, speaks his dialogues
with numerous pauses, looks sideways
when he is talking, looks perpetually
high on hashish, with love-handles
that follow him like Hutch
– is an important man, doing an
important job.
Aditya lives with his wife Ashwini
(Isha Koppikar, who looks strange
covered in a Maharashtrian sari, has a
voice with can put a lot of
fisherwomen to shame, and looks like a
basketball player every time she is
towering over Fardeen) and an
obnoxious kid in a 10 BHK flat (Ok, I
am exaggerating.)
 He is also having an affair with
Geeta (Esha Deol – of
she-who-hasn’t-strapped-her-double-chin-yet
fame, perpetually looks like she has
had a liter of malagootam,
opens her eyes as wide as your palms,
and shrieks like she’s possessed with
the power of the Gray Skull.)
Aditya secures the keys for a Madh
island cottage owned by friend Simmi (Zakir
Hussain, the guy who played the lead
baddie in Sarkar. He looks gay,
acts gay, but is actually NOT gay in
the movie. Weird.) and off he goes
with darling Geeta for some
unhurried-you-know-what.
Geeta reveals she is pregnant, they
both get into an argument, and she
dies accidentally (I never knew a
slight push against a stone wall can
actually kill someone, my head-banging
days are over, sadly). Aditya pees his
pants (well, not literally), buries
Geeta in the front yard of the
cottage, and gets the hell out of
there. So far, so good.
When he comes back, he is a little
disoriented, scared, and utterly
confused. His attention span comes
down to a zero; he cannot converse,
and stutters badly (which is hardly a
surprise, because he does this in each
one of his movies). Police start
investigating the disappearance of
Geeta, and this leaves Aditya a little
more scared. And then he starts seeing
the ghost of Double chin. She even
declares she is going to be a part of
his household from now on.
This is where the interval
happened, and I swear I was kind of
enjoying the movie. There wasn’t much
to write home about the dialogues, but
the treatment was a little different
from the usual Hindi ghost movies.
There was ample use of dark-lit
corners; yes, no ghastly visuals were
shown; yes, and they even threw in a
funny line or two, for kicks. This is
exactly when the director went out for
a smoke, and never came back in.
The ghost starts playing funny
games with Aditya. She suddenly
appears, sits right across him
(obviously, no one, but Aditya can see
her), starts slapping him every now
and then, threatens to kill almost
everyone but the Pope, and smiles
slyly through all this. Oh, and she
starts calling him darling (hence, the
title) Needless to say, Aditya is
scared shitless, agonized, and
nervous.
Anyway, since this is a thriller
ghost movie, I shall not give out the
rest of the plot, but what I’ll say is
that the movie does not have a
surprise ending, which got a loud
grunt out of me. I liked the movie for
the story per se (only till the first
part though), and if and only if it
wasn’t for the bad acting, and
predictable moments, I’d be writing a
positive review.
 I’ll not say Fardeen khan is a
non-actor, because I’ll be repeating
myself (refer to the Cash,
Heyy babyy reviews). It annoys the
hell out of me to see him in this
role, since anybody, I repeat, ANYBODY
else could have done this role way
much better. Hell, he could have been
replaced by Chakravarthy (from Satya)
and HE could have done some justice.
Esha Deol has not much to do in the
movie except look like a ghost (her
make-up inspired by countless Korean
movies), and scream bastard every
three minutes. She also wears the same
white Kurta you have seen in
the promos throughout the movie (sans
pajamas too, but since she’s a ghost,
and those are the clothes she died in,
she can’t help it). Something tells me
she might be doing more of such roles.
Isha Koppikar is strictly OK, since
she is just the Hindustani wife doing
her duty (except slap her husband
once). What works for this movie (if
at ALL) is the story, which shows some
promise in the beginning, but ends up
looking like something which was
written during a terrible hangover.
I almost said that Darling is a
once-watch able movie, but thought
better of it. Out of all horror flicks
RGV has made (Bhoot, Darna
Mana hai, Darna Zaroori hai,
Raat) this one is the weakest.
I do sincerely hope he is not planning
on a sequel OR a remake of this movie.
‘nuff said.
|
