Darling [1965]

Schlesinger and screenwriter Frederick Raphael don't exactly condemn Diana making her choices or for taking the route that she does, but they haven't anything positive to say about her either. Christie plays her as a spoilt, petulant little girl, too totally amoral to feel anything honest or meaningful for another person, or for that matter, to elicit a strong feeling from us.

Christie is eminently watchable and her stunning beauty carries the film. In fact, she's so pretty that her flaky character remains always interesting. Dirk Bogarde goes from happy to neurotic to vindictive, and Laurence Harvey maintains a smug winner's superiority that's very off-putting. If there is any downside to Darling, it's that there's ultimately nobody on screen worthy of our sympathy.

But Darling is ultimately a searing indictment of Sixties superficiality, all dressed up to look chic and sophisticated, in which the surface of things is readily available from a deluge of media outlets but nothing is explored in depth. It is indeed a classic film and can be viewed again and again.

By closely studying and scrutinizing Julie Christie's character, Raphael and Schlesinger were able to focus on poster girl, the pretty face we encounter every day on television that seduces us into buying products we neither want nor need. Perhaps the ultimate statement, and the theme of the movie, is that this type of character is as empty as the image itself.

At one moment, as she is caught by a camera from precisely the right angle, Diana Scott displays an almost classic beauty, startling in its intensity; a second later, all sorts of sordid, superficial emotions cross over her face, making her appear cheap and ultimately quite vacuous. Perhaps it's a testament to Ms. Christie's fine performance that she can make these emotions appear so real. Mike Leonard October 05.


darling with julie christie,dirk bogarde/lawrence harvey   July 20, 2005
 3 out of 4 found this review helpful

excellent movie and acting. Very real.


Extremely recommendable   March 9, 2004
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

Unfortunatley, in our days, "Darling" is not a too well known movie anymore - but Julie Christie sure is a well known actress. Most people know her from her stunning role in the movie "Dr. Zhivago", which she is most famous for and whose character she is most connected with. However, "Darling" is a great opportunity to get to see a different Julie Christie - not the shy, introverted, vulnerable yet beautiful and brave "Lara" from "Dr. Zhivago", but instead a capricious, frivolous, materialistic and superficial young girl. A very recommendable movie, especially since its critical statement is more than topical in our times.


When Christie Was Good, She Was Very Good...   November 11, 2003
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Darling is one of the best films of the 1960's with its sharp direction, even sharper script, atmospheric black and white photography, and three outstanding star performances. The style of the film may seem somewhat dated, but its substance still packs a considerable punch.

The film involves its audience with genuine appeal to our emotions and intellect, rather than in the manipulative manner of many more recent movies. Darling makes us think and challenges us to feel. Although very much a reflection of its time, Darling still has very much to say today. It is sad, therefore, that some of those involved in its making tend to distance themselves from it now. Maybe their subsequent careers have made them resemble the film's targets. If nothing else, Darling is populated by real people - some of whom are sometimes uncomfortably realistic.

It is perhaps difficult to realise now how shocking a character Julie Christie was portraying at the time - in those unenlightened days when free love and liberated women were only just beginning to surface into public awareness. The audience was asked to feel sympathy for this middle-class girl who bed-hopped her way from model to princess with barely a hint of conscience. Perhaps she was intended to be another British anti-hero - a female version of Jimmy Porter, Joe Lampton or Arthur Seaton. Or maybe she was the prophetic face of the future - the sixties symbol that everything was changing. Whatever the intention, the character of Diana Scott made a definite impact, both on the men in her life and on the audiences who watched her with a mixture of fascination, disbelief, and (quite possibly) a touch of envy.

The film's solid foundation - some might say its heart and soul - lies in the worldly wise and wickedly satirical script by Frederic Raphael. His characters are equally blessed with wit and faults - they all have a knack for delivering wonderful one-liners in moments of crisis. Example - When Bogarde parts from Christie for the last time, he tells her that he intends to write a book about his life. Christie says that she played the biggest part in his life. Bogarde raises an eyebrow and replies quietly: "Certainly the most melodramatic."

It is precisely this contrast between Christie's emotional rollercoaster and Bogarde's coolly calculated underplaying that provides most of the film's best moments. Although Laurence Harvey also makes a significant contribution. I have always felt that Harvey was a seriously under-rated actor and here he proves just how effective he could be. Christie may have been the romantic face of a changing Britain, but Harvey was the realistic symbol of how things really worked - of the British obsessions with class, self-interest and hypocrisy. It's hard to watch Darling now without thinking of Harvey's character as a sort of Tony Blair in the making. It says much for Dirk Bogarde that he gives the best performance while playing the least believable character. Stranger still that Gregory Peck was once considered for the part.

If I have gone on about the stars more than the direction or design or music or anything like that, it is because this is essentially a film about people. The plot is not so much about what happens to them but how these events affect and change them. The camerawork is occasionally flashy but never intrusive. Sometimes the film looks almost like a documentary, an illusion helped by a first-rate supporting cast. But, more than anything else, this is Julie Christie's film - she is as faultless as she is natural. She won an Oscar for playing Diana Scott. But Darling deserves more than awards - it deserves to be seen.


social climbing to happiness   September 19, 2003
 6 out of 6 found this review helpful

This 1965 multi-award winning film is a riveting portrait of a woman who deviously claws her way to the top, in search of "happiness and completion". Julie Christe won an Oscar for her portrayal of Diana Scott, and manages to make this "trivial and shallow" woman interesting.
Frederick Raphael, who also won an Oscar for his work, wrote a story and script that is the basis of what makes this a riveting film to watch. Every scene makes sense, and every phrase has a purpose; there is not a single word that does not belong, or is unnecessary.
It is wonderfully photographed in a very crisp black and white by Ken Higgins, and has an unobtrusive but lovely score by John Dankworth.

Director John Schlesinger brings out the best in even the bit players, and most of all, from Dirk Bogarde, who gives a heartbreaking, brilliant performance as one of Diana's stepping stones. Laurence Harvey plays a vain and vile character with the snakelike coldness he is so good at, and of course, Christie is in her prime, and her beauty and talent shine bright.

Though the atmoshpere of the film is caught in the '60s, the story and characters are timeless; this film deserves to be viewed, for its tremendous performances, and as a portrait of how times change, but much of humanity stays the same, and selfish desires, even when satisfied, are but clanging brass.