Ram Gopal Varma has always defied norms and anybody who has attempted to break out of the mould will always face the wrath of the conformists. Defying norms, pushing the boundaries and breaking the rules to establish a novel viewpoint works. Ram Gopal Varma is back to his experimenting ? with the psyche of the audience ? which is good news for the movie buff but RGV doesn't completely strike gold with 'Darling' because although it breaks away from the mould, it is entertaining only in parts. Furthermore as an audience, one feels a little cheated into believing the film was along the lines of RGV's previous horror film Bhoot, which induced genuine spooks, whereas in fact, Darling is more funny (intentionally funny that is) than it is scary.
Aditya (Fardeen Khan in a mature look and performance) is the ambitious young executive in an advertising firm. Ambitious and restless, he wants more out of life both professionally and personally. He has a loving wife at home, a typical homemaker (Isha Kopikkar in a de-glam look) and a young son. Once out of the comforting and routine confines of home, he seeks adventure and fun. Geeta (Esha Deol, in a never seen before avatar), is his secretary; quite the wild spirit that Aditya seeks and they end up having a clandestine torrid affair. As they become more and more involved, Geeta craves for more than just attention from Aditya. Unable to give her the commitment she needs from him, Aditya resorts to lies to keep the flame burning between him and Geeta, without really jeopardising his marriage. On a getaway trip, when cornered, Aditya is forced to admit the truth about him never being able to leave his wife and son and that his and Geeta's relationship is never to be 'formalised'. Geeta, unable to take in this bitter truth, flies in an uncontrollable rage and in a scuffle, Aditya ends up killing her by accident. Although this sequence sends shivers up your spine, it is immediately after this that the fun begins, in true RGV style. Geeta's unrequited soul comes back to haunt Aditya with a vengeance. And herein lies the twist in the tale. The fatal attraction plot now takes a severe turn to make the film enter into the character-scape it was basically meant to adorn. However unlike Manjit's ghost in Bhoot, Geeta decides she is going to have a little bit of fun in her revenge and as Aditya is the only one who can see and hear her, she puts him into some rather uncomfortable, hilarious situations, for example, the scene where Aditya is interacting with his new secretary and ditto for the scene with the female police officer. Even the coffee shop rendezvous and her appearance and intervention during a passionate exchange between Aditya and his wife, will have the audience in splits.
The weakest link of this chain is the manner in which the final half hour of the screenplay is developed and the weak dialogues. A new concept on storyboard needs to be visually experimented with, but to a certain extent that's still just the treatment. What is lacking in Darling, ironically, is the soul. In the first half, the movie manages to make you jump out of your seat, which can be credited to Fardeen Khan's convincing portrayal of fear. His is the only character whom you 'feel' for, in the film. Esha Deol is brilliant in being sinister, yet not losing the sarcastic black humour which makes her character work the best. Just like RGV, Esha is at her best when she is asked to be unconventional. Isha Koppikar is under-utilised in the film. The characters are half baked and at times very stereotypical. There is no depth to the characters invoking neither empathy nor indignation. And the final confrontation scene, the climax of the film, is limp and weary, making one feel the impact of the lag in the film with full force. However, the cameos played by Upendra Limaye as the investigating officer on the case and Zakir Hussain as Fardeen's friend and colleague Samir are brilliant in their enactment and get the maximum laughs from the audience.
The background score (by Prasanna Shekhar), which has always added depth to a RGV film, in this case, actually takes away from it as it is too jarring and distracting. If only the same subtly that is maintained in the humour, were maintained in the background score, the film would have been notches above what it is. Even though Ram Gopal Varma sticks to his low angled shots re-creating the 'Bhoot' aura but he also experiments with jerky movements of the camera which at times make the scenes fall with a thud (Cinematography is by Amit Roy). The songs (music by Himesh Reshammiya, Pritam and Prasanna Shekhar) are incidental ? inserted just about anywhere and not required at all. Ideally this is a film which could have been 1.5 hours in length, sans any songs, as songs are unnecessary.
Like many of RGV's recent films, the problem with Darling is that although he starts of well, he himself seems to lose interest somewhere down the line and hence the climax is a major letdown leaving you to wonder why he did not spend enough time developing the screenplay to give it a conclusion which suited the treatment of the rest of the film. It looks like RGV started off with the intention of having some fun, and mid-way decided he wanted to be spooky, which why you will be a bit confused as a viewer, trying to decipher the director's intention. The spook quotient is not enough and the black humour is weak in parts. In some crucial scenes, RGV's keen sense of humour is, at times, relegated to being a physical comic element of an invisible character creating havoc in a man's life when the humour element should have been played out at a psychological level knowing what Fardeen's character is emotionally going through. You walk out of the cinema hall confused and by the time you have reached the parking lot, well, you have forgotten all about the film. However, this is one of those films which will come back to "haunt" you when you think of it again, while watching it on a DVD or on television. It is mostly because you go in expecting something and you end up getting an un-assorted pot-pourri that you feel disappointed. But if you watch it without any preconceived notions, you will at least find its worth a once watch, just to experience RGV's funny take on a deathly tale.