Balaji Telefilms’ Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare is the story of two cousins, Dolly (Konkona Sen Sharma) and Kaajal (Bhumi Pednekar). Dolly lives in NOIDA with her husband, Amit Pandey (Aamir Bashir), and two children, Pappu (master Kalp Shah) and Bharat (master Hearty Singh). They are middle-class and are looking forward to moving into a new home. Dolly’s cousin, Kaajal (Bhumi Pednekar), comes to NOIDA from a small town and starts working in a company which runs an online romance app where she has to sex-talk with her clients, mostly sex-starved guys looking for love. Dolly operates under the name of Kitty. She falls in love with one of her clients, Pradeep (Vikrant Massey). A lot of twists and turns later, the two cousins learn to accept life as it comes.
Alankrita Shrivastava has penned a very bold story about Dolly’s dysfunctional family and about the fact that women also have sexual desires. Her screenplay oscillates between the stories of the two sisters. The two stories also intersect each other, making it all the more interesting. However, the story and screenplay are at best very class in appeal because the drama is devoid of the usual ingredients of a masala fare. While there is a lot of sex, and the screenplay also abounds in intimate scenes, the underlying plot of showing women as being subservient to males and also showing women as being unhappy creatures leaves the general audience and masses with a feeling of depression. No doubt, what the drama shows is nothing but reality but the fact remains that the masses are more fond of watching escapist fare than harsh reality. Alankrita Shrivastava’s dialogues are very real and add immensely to the drama.
Bhumi Pednekar lives the role of Kaajal/Kitty. She does a fantastic job and gets into the skin of the character. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that she plays the difficult role without any inhibitions whatsoever. Konkona Sen Sharma is first-rate as Dolly. She also gives her cent per cent to the role and approaches it with all the conviction at her command. Amol Parashar is extremely endearing as Osman Ansari. Vikrant Massey is fantastic as Pradeep. His body language and expressions are to die for. Aamir Bashir lends very good support in the role of Amit Pandey. Kubra Sait leaves a fine mark as Shazia. Karan Kundra makes his presence amply felt as DJ. Neelima Azeem (as Dolly’s mother), Prabhat Raghunandan (as Billa), Pavleen Gujral (as June), master Kalp Shah (as Pappu), master Hearty Singh (as Bharat), Shahnawaz Pradhan (as Ghanshyam Pandey), Sushil Bonthiyaal (as Nitin Gupta), Ashwin Kaushal (as Gippi) and the rest lend very good support.
Alankrita Shrivastava’s direction is lovely. She has handled the drama with the sensitivity it needed. Music (Arjuna Harjai, Clinton Cerejo, Sadhu S. Tiwari) is functional yet quite impactful. Lyrics (Geet Sagar and Siddhant Kaushal) are meaningful. Tushar Kalia’s choreography is fair. Mangesh Dhakde’s background music is pretty effective. John Jacob Payyapalli’s cinematography is quite nice. Production designing (by Tiya Tejpal) is okay. Charu Shree Roy’s editing could’ve been sharper.
On the whole, although a well-made and bold film, Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare has appeal mainly for the elite audience in the cities because it lacks entertainment value in that sense of the term.
Released today (18-9-’20) on Netflix.