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Darling

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.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Bodies Bodies Bodies

Director – Halina Reijn – 2022 – US – Cert. 15 – 94m

*

A make-believe party game of murder turns into horrifying reality when pretend dead bodies turn out to be really dead and the genuine body count continues to mount – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 9th

Five women, three couples, two exes, one single. Seven people. Six twentysomethings. They gather in the house of one of their number David (Peter Davidson), whose absent parents are rich and the house and grounds reflect that. Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and Bee (Maria Bakalova) have been together maybe six weeks. David and Emma (Chase Sui Wonders) longer. Alice (Rachel Sennott) and fortysomething Greg (Lee Pace) a mere two weeks. Jordan (Myha’la Herrold) is not coupled.

This is a hurricane party – a party held following a hurricane warning where power outages are likely, so people gather together to pool their perishable resources e.g. food from switched off fridges and avoid the need to travel over several days. The script assumes the audience knows all this, but to people living outside the US this may be a completely new concept; the script here makes much use of power outages but completely fails to exploit the shared resources and lack of travel aspects of the phenomenon.… Read the rest