‘Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare’ Review: A Movie Highlighting A Plethora Of Societal Norms

‘Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare’ stars Bhumi Pednekar and Konkona Sen Sharma in the lead roles. The movie also stars Vikrant Massey and Amol Parashar opposite the leading ladies respectively.

A film by Alankrita Shrivastava, ‘Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare’ is one of the few movies of Bollywood which has the female character as the protagonist. This movie is a comedy satire starring the two talented and beautiful ladies of the tinsel town who have made a mark for themselves in the industry and have ruled the minds of the audience by breaking the conventional definition of ‘heroine’ in Bollywood. Bhumi Pednekar and Konkona Sen Sharma were so natural on-screen that it became difficult to differentiate between reel life and real life. With an amazing bunch of actors, the movie starts with the character of Bhumi Pednekar, ‘Kajal’, a 22-year old girl who moved to Noida in search of a job. Kajal hails from Darbhanga, a district in Bihar who comes to Noida and starts living with her cousin ‘Dolly’, played by Konkona Sen Sharma. Dolly, on the other hand, is in an ‘apparently happy’ marriage according to the society. She lives with her husband and two kids. The movie also highlights the difficulties faced by the middle-class members of the society and their struggle to lead a luxurious life. Dolly is a working mother whose only dream in life is to move to a bigger flat and lead a luxurious life. The character of Konkona can be seen selling her jewellery and sometimes stealing from here and there to pay the instalments of the flat. Kajal, on the other hand, faces molestation from her cousin’s husband as she moves to their house to live with them. The movie goes on to highlight how women are constantly subjected to sexual objectification irrespective of the relationship they share with the male counterpart. When Kajal finds a job for herself at a call centre for love and sex chats, she finds herself surrounded with men callers luring her with comments like ‘What is the size of your breasts’ and other enticing remarks. Kajal works under the name ‘Kitty’ and soon gets attracted to one of her customers ‘Pradeep’ illustrated by Vikrant Massey. After spending some quality time together, Kitty falls in love with Pradeep and later finds out that he is married and has a kid. ‘Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare’ also portrays the suppression of one’s sexual identity right from the childhood. Dolly’s younger son Pappu finds himself comfortable around girls and love playing with dolls. Pappu can be seen using his mother’s make-up during his playtime which goes against the conventional image of being a boy. Instead of supporting her son, Dolly can be seen beating him as if this will change his sexual identity. This movie also illustrates how the society never understands the needs of a woman and always expects her to either play the role of a mother, a daughter, a wife, a sister and so on. Despite being a woman herself, Dolly could not bear the fact that her mother left her to live a life on her own terms. While Dolly struggles with her ‘problematic’ marriage, she finds herself getting attracted to a delivery boy Osmaan Ansari played by Amol Parashar. Osmaan falls in love with Dolly and promises to be by her side always. When both of them engages in a sexual intercourse, Dolly finds out that she is not ‘thanda’ in bed as claimed by her husband Amit, who also dials the number of the call centre for sex chats. Unknown of the fact that he has been speaking to his sister-in-law, one day when Kitty loses her patience over the call and threatens her brother-in-law that she would spill all the beans to her sister Dolly, Amit calls Kajal’s parents and tells them everything about her job. Her parents arrive at the city to take her back along with them and marry her off. When Kajal questions why no one is talking about Amit dialling the call centre’s number, they say that he is a ‘man’ as they change the topic. The movie ends with Kitty working in the same call centre even after her parent’s denial and goes on to provide ‘romance’ through the call centre services which is very rare in the society these days. Kitty also takes the initiative along with her bosses to start a calling service for women so that they can also come out of their ‘loneliness’. Dolly, on the other hand, leaves her husband’s house after Osmaan dies in a mob lynching in which she was also present. The death of Osmaan depicts the death of the little hope for Dolly as she leaves for her mother’s house along with her little one Pappu whom she gifts a pink hairband in the last scene of the movie. So, what are you waiting for? Go and Netflix now!