Oh My Darling is a teen movie that tries to do too many things with its teenage sensibility and ends up being a bland creation that’s all over the place. Starring Anikha Surendran and Melvin G Babu as the lead pair, Oh My Darling is a movie that uses clichéd emotional scenes as an excuse to hide its ability to deliver something fresh.
Jeni and Joyal are a young couple who are in a relationship. Jeni is still going to college, and Joyal is a 24-year-old BTech graduate trying his luck with animation. The romantic equation that was going very casually gets shock waves when Jeni gets pregnant. Her decision to continue with the pregnancy puts Joyal in a tough position. We see how the couple goes through that phase of uncertainty in Alfred D’Samuel’s Oh My Darling.
Knowing your audience is extremely important when you are trying to represent them on screen. The movie seems like a very abstract representation of a generation who are mostly in social media. The movie opens with a title song that establishes Jeni as a hard-core BTS fan. The writer has tried to claim that her peculiar fashion sensibility comes from watching drama series. The detailing is so blurry that it almost feels like the generalized perspective about the current teens from the elderly without really trying to ask them. What was a bit too insufferable for me was the movie’s last act. It looked like a muddle of sacrifice, goodness, and wild imagination.
Melvin G Babu, who was last seen in Jo and Jo as one of the close friends of the hero, is somewhat repeating the same style here as well. While the immature act is convincing in the initial parts of the film, as the movie approaches the climax, the responsibility is hefty, and Melvin is stuck in that same zone. Anikha Surendran as the leading lady, might feel like an apt choice as the character transition matches her age. But the climax and the sequences before that were a bit too much for her shoulders. Mukesh and Johny Antony are playing the Lalu Alex fathers of both Jeni and Joyal. All the YouTube jokes featuring Manju Pillai were irrelevant to the movie. Dain Davis, Fukru, etc., are there for the sake of higher satellite value.
The outsider’s understanding of the movie’s makers about the characters in this movie is the primary reason for dissatisfaction. The heroine being a BTS fan is just a pointless add-on. The hero is introduced as this reckless young guy who just wants to go for rides. Oh My Darling talks about a medical condition, which is the film’s core. But instead of approaching that point very gradually with elements that blend with that theme, writer Jineesh K Joy includes sentimental and comedy tracks that are easily removable from the narrative. When you look at the film in totality, many tracks that show the events in Joyal’s life aren’t affecting the movie in any way. The music was pretty average, and the cinematography was mostly about making things look bright and happy, even in a conflict scene.
When you are talking about the amateurish characteristics of characters, the movie does not have to be amateurish like them. And if you are planning to tap into the emotional equations, things need to be coherent for the audience. Oh My Darling is just mixing all the typical ingredients into a teen love story. Barring a few dialogue humor featuring Johny Antony, nothing else in this movie works.
Barring a few dialogue humor featuring Johny Antony, nothing else in this movie works.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
