Plot

A disillusioned Delhi wife and her new-in-town cousin navigate damning secrets, dreams and their thorny dynamic on their respective roads to freedom.

Set in a newly developing industrial area on the outskirts of New Delhi, Dolly Kitty aur Woh Chamakte Sitare, chronicles the quiet transgression of two cousins (women), who through their complicated love- hate equation, they both enable each other to find freedom.

Radha "Dolly" Yadav (Konkona Sen Sharma) is part of a middle-class family in Noida with her husband Amit (Aamir Bashir) and two sons Bharat (Hearty Singh) & Pappu. While they are financially stable, they struggle to pay the installments for a new luxury apartment they are in the process of purchasing. Unbeknownst to Amit, Dolly manages the payments by selling her jewelry or by stealing money from her employers, a small accounting firm. Dolly's younger cousin Kajal "Kitty" Yadav (Bhumi Pednekar) has recently arrived from rural Bihar to chase her dreams and aspirations in the city. When Kajal tells Dolly that Amit makes unwanted advances towards her, Dolly puts it down to misunderstanding and laughs it off. Uncomfortable with her situation, Kajal looks to move out of Dolly's home but this is made difficult by her lack of qualifications (She tries to work at a shoe factory owned by Gippi (Ashwin Kushal), but quits as Gippi treats his workers like slaves). PG accommodations are very crammed and Kajal doesn't earn enough to afford a place of her own.

Eventually, Kajal takes up a job at a call center for Red Rose Romance, a paid dating app where men can call in and speak to the women of their fantasies. After working through the initial shock of realization that most men call the app demanding phone sex, she takes on the identity of "Kitty" and becomes an expert at navigating tricky calls. She moves into a hostel and experiences the freedom of big city life with her new friends Shazia (Kubbra Sait) and DJ Teja Gujjar (Karan Kundra). She hides this information from Dolly, who finds Kajal's line of work indecent and unfit for women from good families. Billa (Prabhat Raghunandan) is GUjjar's brother and wants him to get rid of Shazia (as she is a Muslim). Meanwhile, Dolly struggles with hypo-active sexual desire disorder, leading to lack of intimacy with Amit and frustration. Dolly sets up a meeting with her estranged mother (Neelima Azeem) to understand whether her sexual difficulties are genetic, but her mother denies having any sexual problems and encourages Dolly to discover herself and find her own freedom. Dolly also has to reckon with the cross-dressing tendencies of her younger son Pappu (Kalp Shah), which nearly gets him expelled from school. Kajal starts to moonlight as escort to rich parties, but cant bring herself to indulge in prostitution. In one of the parties she learns that the builder of Dolly's apartment society does not intend to complete the project. When Kajal's call center becomes the center of media attention, Dolly confronts her, and the two have a verbal blow-up. Kaajal tells Dolly that her dream of owning a luxury apartment is never going to be completed.

Kajal develops a friendship with a man called Pradeep (Vikrant Massey) through the Red Rose Romance app. While on a trip to the Taj Mahal (with Shazia and Gujjar), she asks Pradeep to join him for a date, and they soon become intimate. Meanwhile Dolly strikes up a friendship with MBA student and delivery man Osmaan (Amol Parashar), and over several meetings they become close. Dolly struggles with her feelings and initially tries to overcome them by trying to have sex with her husband Amit. One day Kitty realizes that Amit is a regular caller to her call center and she is his newest companion. Kitty cries. When local political goons organize a raid on a well-known lovers' lane, Kajal and Pradeep are arrested for public indecency and taken to jail. Pradeep bribes the policemen and arranges himself to be freed, then disappears without a second thought for Kajal. She calls Dolly, who comes and picks her up. The two open up to each other, with Dolly speculating that her disorder is a result of a hymen re-stitching operation that she got to make it seem like she was still a virgin when she married Amit, and Kajal recounting her disappointment at her first sexual experience. Dolly expresses that it would be a great idea if an equivalent for Red Rose Romance existed for women. Later, Kajal tracks down Pradeep, only to find out that he's actually a married man called Chhatrasar Singh. When Shazia breaks up with Gujjar, Kajal becomes intimate with him and is able to achieve orgasm through oral sex.

Dolly becomes intimate with Osmaan. When they have sex, she enjoys it, realizing that her lack of sexual satisfaction with Amit is not a result of a clinical disorder, but stems from a lack of desire. When Amit calls the call center again, Kitty is her companion and confronts him directly, asking him as to why he is cheating on Dolly. Amit in turn calls Kajal's parents to Noida to confront her and what she does for a job. Kajal's office is vandalized by the political goons, and several of the women working at the call center quit their jobs, fearing for their safety. Kajal, Dolly, and her family visit a local fair for the unveiling of a new structure by a feminist artist. Kajal comes across Pradeep, who promises to leave his family for her, but she rejects him. The new structure is the shape of a vagina, and the gathering is soon attacked by goons who deem it to be against Indian culture. In the resulting commotion, Shazia and Osmaan are shot dead. Kajal and Dolly grieve for them, and reconcile due to their shared grief.

Amit finds out about Dolly's affair, but wants to move on from it and resume the appearance of being in a normal family. However, Dolly explains that she is not attracted to him, and decides that she wants to separate. Her older son chooses to stay with Amit, but Pappu comes with her. Kajal goes back to her bosses, and they re-open the office and launch a new Red Rose app for women. The last shot of the film is Dolly and Pappu taking a bus ride out of town, recalling Dolly's own experience with her mother.