Darling (2007)

This fast-paced film will have you on the edge of your seat, and totally blown away by the ending. The realism is convincing (not the usual melodrama one might expect for a plot involving adultery and deception), and Fardeen, Esha, and Isha all deliver excellent performances.The errant husband (Fardeen), living is his own fantasy world of having the perfect wife at home (Isha) and the sexy mistress on the side (Esha), soon finds 'reality' crashing down around him, and his world becomes a living nightmare, with a vengeful ghost only he can see -- and she terrorizes him mercilessly, in every part of his life, no matter how personal or intimate the situation; amazingly-crafted scenes throughout the film.The climax, totally-unexpected, is jaw-dropping -- don't miss this movie!

Happy New Year all, I'm not nagging. Watch this film and tell me it's not a mix-bag of RAAZ and YAKEEN. Fardeen Khan plays Aditya Soman, a man having an office affair with his tempestuous secretary Geeta Menon played by Esha Deol. Isha Koppikar (in one of her best roles to date) disappears into a traditional sari and mangal sutra to play Aditya's unsuspecting yet inexplicably sexy wife, Ashwini. The Soman household is then thrown into peril upon the accidental death of Geeta during a fight with Aditya, when she returns from the grave to haunt them. Sometimes in Ram Gopal Varma's films I usually find myself wondering why one character or the other has to inexplicably high on something. This particular film had one too many. The best thing about Darling is that no matter how boring is gets even after the plot twist, it still mysteriously keeps you watching. It's not a horror film, it's scary in a very psychological way. Khan does his best to keep us interested in whether or not Aditya finds some absolution following his philandering ways. Deol is as wicked as she was in Ankahee but Koppikar as the refined Ashwini stands out and makes you wonder what her Aditya must have been smoking to go out and cheat on her with Geeta.I liked the songs (there were just three of them but oh! well...), and my only complaint about the film is that is dragged on and on at some points. The ending was explosive but kind of predictable. What a great punishment for a man hopelessly devoted to two women.

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.

The movie starts out well, but around the middle part starts to falter. You realize that the director had a thread-bare plot which he tries to stretch out to the maximum, causing the film to feel begrudgingly slow.The performances are okay. Fardeen Khan does well as the man in over his head. Esha Deol was interesting and a convincingly good antagonist. Isha Koppikar, unfortunately, was not up to the mark. Fardeen's friend, Sameer, had an interesting role, but it feels like his role was chopped up at the editing table.The two police characters - Bhaskar Reddy and Malti - were terrific every time they were on screen. He the talkative one, she the stone-faced silent one.I wasn't exactly bored by the film, but I was aware of the slow pace.