Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare

Addressing those areas of human emotions, especially that of women, which are considered taboo, was the core of Alankrita Shrivastava’s last feature film Lipstick Under My Burkha. Coming to her new movie Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare, Alankrita is yet again giving emphasis on the feelings of the women. The moral dilemma or the fear of getting judged for being themselves gets addressed here and even though it wasn’t as impactful as Lipstick, our society has grown little in terms of its mentality towards women that it still feels relevant rather than repetitive.

Dolly and Kitty, two cousin sisters are our central protagonists. Dolly is married and she is a government employee who has two kids and has all these luxurious plans for her future. Kaajal aka Kitty was living with Dolly but decides to move out for her own privacy and joins a company that runs an app that provides companions to lonely men through phone conversations. How these two sisters understood the constraints that were blocking them from living their life fully is what ultimately Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare all about.

I found the movie trying too much and yet not delivering sufficiently at the same time. It’s about two women who are hesitant to explore life. They are not peculiar characters. The insecurities and issues they face are in a way relatable. Instead of giving us a more layered picture of their personal space, Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare tries to be political in a very vocal way. The right-wing political party and its workers are moving against Kitty’s company, there is chaos in the climax due to a problematic art installation and the film somewhere disconnects from the women and becomes somewhat an open lecture about how the patriarchal society is afraid to accept the emotions of the female.

Alankrita who has written the movie definitely has created some moving and bold moments in the movie. The issues in the sex life after a phase, the sexual orientation of the child, the confrontation scene of Dolly and her mother have some importance in understanding who these characters were at the beginning of the movie and who they were by the end of the film. But the subplots in the story of these sisters, especially the love they find, somewhere lack depth. The liberation they feel towards the end of the film is supposed to move us and that wasn’t really happening. Maybe the overload of things that Alankrita wanted to say through the movie reduced the impact of everything she wanted to convey.  And there were some loose ends in the story that I felt went unattended.

Konkona Sen Sharma as Dolly portrayed the peculiar midlife crisis of the character very neatly. From being a typical, materialistically ambitious woman to an empathizing individual she performed the transformation of Dolly convincingly. Bhumi Pednekar played the part of the broken Kitty very effectively. Her character is the one who perhaps goes through a lot of emotional torture in this movie. Aamir Bashir as Dolly’s husband Amit was fine. The inherent innocence on his face helps Amol Parashar in portraying the likable Osman. Vikrant Massey, Karan Kundra, Kubra Sait, etc are the other prominent faces here.

Alankrita Shrivastava is trying to say so much here that the movie almost feels preachy. But like I said, our society is still so narrow-minded (#womenhavelegs) that one can’t really dismiss this movie and its political statement. Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare is a relevant but politically overcrowded movie.

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