Darling is a 2024 Tamil language comedy drama film written and directed by Aswin Raam. The film has Priyadarshi & Nabha Natesh playing the lead roles while Ananya Nagalla, Brahmanandham, Moin, Shiva Reddy, Muralidhar Goud, Kalynee Raj, Sunitha Manohar, Mullapudi Rajeshwari, Abhignya, Jeevan, Krishna Teja, Vishnu Oi, Sanjay Swarup, Raghu Babu, Priyanka, Swapnika, Sivaranjani & others are seen in important supporting roles. The music is composed by Vivek Sagar and the film is produced by Niranjan Reddy & Chaitanya under Primeshow Entertainment banner.
Story:
Raghav (Priyadarshi) is a middle-class guy who works at a tourist office, saving money for his dream honeymoon in Paris. Accidentally, he meets a girl named Anandhi (Nabha Natesh) and marries her on the same day. By the end of the day, he comes to know that she has split personality disorder. How will he face the challenges that arise? What happens to the pair at the end? Needs to be seen in the film.
What about on-screen performances?
Nabha Natesh is the show stealer in the film. Her role has multiple shades and she does well in all of them. She has a witty comedy timing and she excels with it in the film. Had the writing complimented her part, this surely would have been a memorable outing for her.
Priyadarshi is decent in his part as Raghav but this is definitely not one of his performances. His comic timing is good but he does go off track in a few scenes.
Ananya Nagalla has an extended cameo as the doctor who helps the hero and she does well in his limited space.
Vishnu Oi & Krishna Teja bring in some laughs here and there as the hero’s friends.
Niharika Konidela & Brahmanandham are completely wasted in weak cameos which have no significance to the plot. The same goes for the special appearances of Suhas & Abhignya too.
The rest of the supporting cast does not make much impact.
What about off-screen talents?
The story by Aswin Raam is not up to the mark. Though the core point of a girl having a split personality disorder is interesting, he never explores this concept to the fullest which actually could’ve generated a lot of comedy & fun.
The screenplay is the biggest drawback of the film. The scenes are written in a haywire manner which never has a proper thread. Not even one scene entertains us completely as they are undercooked. Even the comedy scenes that come in fail to generate decent laughter.
The way the hero & heroine meet is so artificial that the emotions later never connect in the entire film. The part where the couple tries to convince the hero’s parents, the hill station scene with the old man, the suicide scene on the tank, the saree shopping bit, Niharika’s coffee shop scene, the pre-climax flashback sequence, and the climax airport scene are a few examples of how half-baked the writing was.
Director Aswin Raam does a pretty mediocre job with his craft. He fails to effectively use the interesting point at hand and makes a big mess with his clueless writing. He couldn’t extract neat performances from his cast nor he could get the technical basics right from his crew too.
The dialogues by Sai Hemanth are underwhelming, Except for a few funny one-liners, none of the conversations work as expected.
The camera work by Naresh Ramadurai is average. The indoor portions and the outdoor part have too much of a difference and this can clearly be seen in the second half. His framing and the lighting pattern he chose for the interiors also didn’t go well on screen.
The songs by Vivek Sagar hardly leave an impact. In fact, the songs look very unnecessary and their placements look odd. His background score sadly doesn’t lift the film either. This is perhaps the weakest film of Vivek in his career till date.
The edit by Pradeep E Raghav is weak. The film is too lengthy and many scenes could have been easily chopped off.
The production values by Primeshow Entertainment are adequate.
What’s Hot?
* Nabha Natesh’s Performance
* Few Funny One Liners
* Production Values
What’s Not?
* Half Baked Writing
* Haywire & Poorly Written Screenplay
* Flat Comedy Scenes
* Unwanted & Forced Songs
* Weak Sub Plots & Characterizations
Verdict: Overall, Darling is a middling comedy film that bogs down due to the half-baked writing and flat comedy scenes. Can give it a try for Nabha Natesh once it comes on the OTT!!
Telugubulletin.com Rating: 2/5