Director – John Schlesinger – 1965 – UK – Cert. 15 – 128m
*****
A young woman abandons her dull marriage to navigate life and love in 1960s swinging London – back out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 30th, and on 4K UHD & Blu-ray on Monday, 16th June
Today, this stands as a testament to the 1960s, when social class in Britain began to break down and people began experimenting with lifestyle and morality in hitherto unthinkable ways. It plays as a fascinating snapshot of its contemporary time and mores, providing a glimpse into the sixties, the decade of Swinging London when, for a brief moment, this city was the coolest in the world.
Yet, for Darling’s characters, London is just where they happen to live. In a loose framing device, Diana Scott (Julie Christie) recounts her memories into a tape recorder, presumably for an unseen interviewer or biographer, although while this dramatic device anchors the narrative charting of the young woman’s life and career, it does little beyond ease the viewer into her story and allow her to interject pertinent comments at various points.
As a child in the school play, people are already referring to Diana as Darling. She is a young woman when she is interviewed as one of a number of people on London’s streets by television producer Robert Gold (Dirk Bogarde), who is so taken with her that he invites her in to the studio to see the finished piece. They start hanging around with each other and soon move in together, despite the fact that she has a pleasant enough husband with whom she got married at a young age and for whom she doesn’t really care, while he already has a wife and kids.
In her voice-over, Diana unconvincingly attempts to justify her effective role as a home wrecker by extolling the virtues of Robert’s taking time out to see his kids, but scenes where she spies on one of his family home visits from a nearby telephone box or goes berserk at their house upon his late return from one of his visits, fearing he spent the night with his wife, suggest she is far more possessive of him than that.
The 1960s has been called ‘The Me Decade’, and there’s something terribly selfish about both members of this couple. But at least, for much of the film, they represent some sort of domestic ideal of partnership – always there for each other. Until they aren’t because she is drawn to ruthless, smooth-talking and -operating advertising man Miles (Laurence Harvey), who proves instrumental in securing her a lucrative job representing a major client in their advertising campaigns, in which she becomes known in the trade as “the Happiness Girl”. Soon, she is cheating on Robert with Miles as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Finally, she takes up with her photographer Malcolm (Roland Curram), who is openly gay (in a time before the word was in common parlance with that meaning – it isn’t used as such here) which allows her to enjoy a friendship with a man with no sexual overtones. (Although she’s less than happy when he disappears into the night with a man on a scooter.) She claims not to like sex that much, but the fact that she subsequently accepts a marriage proposal – and later still yearns to rekindle her relationship with Robert – suggests otherwise.
In the end, it all comes back to bite her. She marries a wealthy, and charming widower Italian prince, only to find herself trapped within his vast palatial home looking after his late wife’s kids. She longs for escape, and returns to London, intending to take up again with Robert. However, he has other ideas…
This is shot in memorable, crisp black and white by cinematographer Ken Higgins at a time when shooting movies in colour hadn’t quite become the norm, which looks great in the current 4K restoration. Yet, striking though that visual aspect of this is, that isn’t what’s truly great about it.
Both male leads Bogarde and Harvey have something of the iconic movie star about them, but both undeniably play second fiddle to Christie as the main character. All three are magnetic whenever they are on the screen, but Christie is given not only far more screen time but also free-range to play a whole gamut of emotions, a task to which she proves more than adequate. In fact, she is stunning throughout. Director Schlesinger, who worked with her previously on Billy Liar (1963) and would do so once more on Far From the Madding Crowd (1967) seems to instinctively know how to get the very best out of her for the camera.
Watching her in Darling, you get a similar buzz to the playfulness of Anna Karina in that actress’ several 1960s films for Jean Luc-Godard, except that those films verge on fantasy whereas Schlesinger’s Darling is much more grounded in narrative realism. It’s perhaps no surprise that Godard’s fellow Nouvelle Vague director François Truffaut would later cast her in his SF adaptation Fahrenheit 451 (1968).
Her character in Darling is basically of someone spoiled by not only the men in her life, but also the mass media in terms of the worlds of modelling, advertising, and the movies which love and fête her character just as the camera loves Julie Christie the real life, physical actress.
If the film’s morality reads as highly questionable, the film leaves no doubt whatsoever as to Christie’s considerable abilities as an actress. This is by no means her only truly great film – others include Dr. Zhivago (David Lean, 1965) and Don’t Look Now (Nicholas Roeg, 1973) – but to witness the magic this actress could weave on the screen, it’s a very good place to start.
Darling earned Julie Christie the Oscar for Best Actress.
Darling is back out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, May 30th, and on 4K UHD & Blu-ray on Monday, 16th June.
Trailer: