Alia Bhatt calls Darlings a ‘mother-daughter film’, opens up on dynamic with Shefali Shah

Alia Bhatt’s maiden production venture, Darlings, is gearing up to hit the silver screens soon. As suggested by the trailer, the film will see Alia take on the role of a wife at the end of her rope, who decides to take matters into her own hands and teach her abusive husband a lesson. She is helped in this endeavour by her mother, portrayed by Shefali Shah. Alia recently opened up about her dynamic with Shefali in the film.

In conversation with Mid Day, Alia spoke of how she found the peculiar mother daughter dynamic in the film interesting. The actress said that throughout the film, one can see Shefali’s character react in a way that completely goes against how one would usually expect a mother to react. “To me, Darlings is a mother-daughter film”, she said.

On her dynamic with co-star Shefali, Alia said that she was delighted to know that the former was also a spontaneous actor like her. Alia talked about how there was always an ‘unpredictable’ energy that flowed between them all the time. As comedy was about timing and juggling off of each others’ energy, Alia said that their dynamic worked in their favour.

On making her debut as a producer, Alia spoke of how she relied on her instincts and considered herself a ‘creative producer’. The actress also admitted that although she had a business oriented mind, the ‘numbers’ were one aspect of filmmaking that did not make any sense to her.

In addition to Alia and Shefali, the upcoming film also stars Vijay Varma, Roshan Mathew, Rajesh Sharma and Vijay Maurya in prominent roles. The film is produced by Gauri Khan, Alia and Gaurav Verma under the banners of Red Chillies Entertainment and Eternal Sunshine Productions. The upcoming film was directed by Jasmeet K Reen.

Darlings will be available to stream on Netflix from August 5.