Review: ‘Hello Darling’ is an insipid comedy

Spicezee Bureau

This movie will make you wonder about the marketing strategy of Bollywood. ‘Hello Darling’ is marketed as a sex comedy, it offers nothing in either departments. The reason may be in the fact that the film is adapted by a Hollywood film called ‘Nine to Five’, which may well have been much funnier as per to the western taste, but here in for the average Bollywood junta, the film comes across as nothing but a dud. Debutant director Manoj Tiwary made a good effort by portraying the evils of gender politics and sexual harassment at workplace, but in actuality, ‘Hello Darling’ hardly alludes to women power. Eventually, what you get is a brainless flick which tries to be pretentious at times in the name of feminism. The story revolves around four people, a conniving personal assistant Candy (Celina Jaitly), the ideal exuberant corporate Mansi (Gul Panag), and newbie Satvati (Esha Koppikar) surrounded by their sexist, egotistical, liar, hypocritical bigot boss Hardik (Javed Jaffery). The trio hatch a plan to bring Hardik down, seize control of the company and, well, teach a lesson to the male species. What follows is an expected chain of events that leads to the three women taking staggeringly stupid decision and dubious plotting disguised as a farce that frustratingly carries a socially relevant message for modern India. There is plenty of skin show in ‘Hello Darling’ – check out the cleavage-flashing leading ladies, but for an exception of Eesha Koppikkar, who makes a commendable effort to get the Haryanvi lingo just right. The movie was meant to be saucy, sultry and smouldering - all it ends up being is silly. Rating: Two cheers for this one!