Review: Darling

Julie Christie stars as a dissatisfied model in an unhappy marriage, who embarks on an affair with TV journo Dirk Bogarde. However, that doesn’t stop her from also bonking her supposedly charming (bastard) professional acquaintance (a well-cast Laurence Harvey), upsetting Bogarde. And when the relationship with Harvey doesn’t satisfy her either, she leaves him for an Italian prince. Does she ever stop and think maybe it’s her and not them? No, of course not, darling. Zakes Mokae can be briefly scene at the most bizarre and abstract party in cinematic history, whilst James Cossins makes his film debut in a small part.

 

Some films are timeless and are as effective now as they ever were. Other films have dated, but can still be appreciated for the time in which they were made. And then there are films like this 1965 British flick from director John Schlesinger (“Midnight Cowboy”, “Marathon Man”, “Pacific Heights”) and screenwriter Frederic Raphael (“Daisy Miller”, “Two for the Road”), where you wonder just what the fuck everyone at the time was seeing in it. Julie Christie won an Oscar for her effort in this, and I suppose I can see why (I can’t see why Raphael’s screenplay also won, though). I mean, I certainly wouldn’t have given the gong to Julie Freaking Andrews in “The Sound of Music”, that’s for damn sure, though I begrudgingly give “The Sound of Music” credit for being a better film than this one, even if it isn’t my kind of film. I found Christie far too giggly for someone carrying on an affair especially since it flies in the face of the regret and understanding she seems to show in her narration. However, it’s not Christie’s fault that the film sucks and really isn’t about anything. OK, so I think the film might be about Christie eventually finding the person she wants to be with, but since she cheats on everyone leading up to that, and acts so horribly and totally unlikeable, why should I give a rat’s arse who she ends up with? And if, as some seem to suggest, the film is satirising all these unlikeable characters, why would that make me want to see how things turn out for Christie, either? I mean, if these were interesting characters it wouldn’t matter that they were unlikeable. No, they’re insufferably dull for the most part, and unlikeable.

 

I get the feeling that when Dirk Bogarde calls Christie a whore, we’re meant to disagree with him. I disagree with anyone who doesn’t take money for sex being labelled a whore, and don’t much like the word used in any other context, either to be honest. But I’m still firmly on Bogarde’s side here. Whore or not, Christie’s character is truly unpleasant, unlikeable, and horribly selfish. She even shoplifts at one point, and being a snobby model she’s hardly starving or penniless. Nope, she steals…because. This is also a woman who has an abortion simply because she can’t be stuffed. I’m pro-choice, but that’s simply not a good enough reason (Though I’ll be the first to tell you it’s up to the woman to decide). She also refers to some ‘gorgeous negroes’ (this woman never shuts up about her apparently fascinating opinions) and says to Bogarde that she’s not the jealous type but complains about his wife, and yet thinks that leaving the wife and marrying her would make them both dreadfully unhappy. Ugh. This is our lead protagonist? I did not want this woman to find happiness, insofar as I even cared about any of this.

 

The screenplay is also strangely choppy. It’s not exactly episodic or incoherent, just annoyingly disjointed at times. The one scene that is genuinely incoherent is the party scene involving Christie, Laurence Harvey, and a young Zakes Mokae. I have absolutely no idea what was going on in this scene. What was that? Why were they doing whatever they were doing? Why would I want to watch some snooty people at a party doing something I don’t understand, which no one really explains?

 

Aside from a solid performance by Dirk Bogarde and an OK jazzy score by John Dankworth (“Accident”, “10 Rillington Place”), the best and frankly only other positive aspect to this film is the B&W cinematography by Kenneth Higgins (“Georgy Girl”, “Hot Millions”, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”, “Julius Caesar”), and I even have an issue with that. The film looks lovely, but being that this is very much a swinging 60s film, why the hell is it in B&W? I enjoy B&W films just as much as colour films (possibly even more, actually), but in my view, depictions of the swinging 60s in London should always be in colour. Always. Yes, even “A Hard Day’s Night” should’ve been in colour. It just doesn’t look right, otherwise. I mean, this is hardly “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” or “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is it?

 

Boring and unlikeable material and a disastrously detestable lead character in a once fashionable film that now seems like endless, pretentious nothing (Though I’m sure someone out there will like it, just not me). The two leads are well-matched, but I loathed this film and I don’t think it holds up well at all after almost 50 years have passed.

 

Rating: D