Director: Alankrita Shrivastava
Cast: Konkana Sen Sharma, Bhumi Pednekar, Vikrant Massey, Amol Parashar
Language: Hindi
When Kitty aka Kajal (played by Bhumi Pednekar) tells her cousin sister Dolly (Konkana Sen Sharma) at an amusement park that her jiju (Dolly’s husband) wants to have sex with her, Dolly laughs. Not anger, disbelief or even disgust. But uncomfortable laughter. Dolly Kitty… holds nothing back from the word go and is peppered with such no-holds barred conversations. The minute the first dialogue between the two women ends, we know what we are in for. Streaming on Netflix, the film is the story of two cousin sisters who share a contentious relationship. There’s ego, jealousy, judgment but also love between the two strong women. While Kitty tries to fit into the Noida world, Dolly is unhappy in a dull marriage. Kitty gets her romantic dreams broken even as she works as a voice operator in a romance app while Dolly seeks a young man to discover her long lost sexual pleasure. In the end, the two find freedom in their own way.
Konkana Sen Sharma shines as an unhappy wife who puts on a happy face. She wants a comfortable lifestyle and goes to surprising lengths to achieve it. She is automatically expected to make the chaai for her male colleagues who gawk at her and make fun of her. Her surprise and anger at her queer son, her underplayed flirting with a college goer are some of the scenes in which Konkana as a middle-aged woman excels. Bhumi Pedneker plays the small-town Kitty who stands up for herself and also reads bajans to ease her anxiety. She gradually gets used to talking dirty with her clients. At first, she pukes. Then she adjusts. For her, it is just a job. Vikrant Massey excels as Kitty’s married boyfriend while Amol Parashar as Osmaan gives a stellar performance as the young virgin who likes an older woman. It is almost poetic when Dolly and Osmaan kiss for the first time at a graveyard. Osmaan even thanks Mrs. Yadav (Konkana) after their first time together in bed. Both experience sexual awakening but also know it is short-lived.
There are tiny moments in the movie that make us want to explore more. The young queer child who wears a bra to school under his shirt, the old grey-haired woman who knits while casually talking dirty to a client, the quiet moment between two sisters and their disappointment in sex and the men around them. Why can’t women have an app for their romantic needs and sexual pleasure, wonders Kitty. Behind their façade is their yearning to be independent and own their desire. However, these moments are fleeting and get overwritten by something else in the plot.
Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare is layered with shades of unfulfilled desires, broken dreams, sexual liberation, all of which are neatly wrapped in a believable and realistic world. But it also struggles with a lot on its plate. There is political agenda, the feminist and caste angle, religion, sisterhood, a queer child and more. After a point, you tend to lose track of the social issue on screen. While what it tries to achieve is applaudable, Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamatke Sitare does not hit the right chord as much as the director’s previous fantastic outing Lipstick Under My Burkha.
Rating: 2.5/5
