Darling review

If you want to see what kind of view you could have if you threw a couple hundred million dollars at a penthouse on Central Park South, head to this rooftop bar on the 47th floor of the Park Lane New York hotel. Darling has a central lounge area surrounded by a brightly-lit hallway with carriage-like seating and an enclosed, awning-covered patio with lots of greenery and a DJ playing disco and funk. That patio is where you’ll get the best views as you sip on cocktails ($22-$25) and snack on bites like spicy chicken sliders and basil arancini. Come here when you want to impress someone (and yourself). Darling isn’t just a cool bar for something that’s in a hotel—it’s a cool bar period.

It would be easy to kick off a review of It also would be incorrect, because everything actually iswhat it seems in Victory. “Don’t Worry Darling” is so clearly, so obviously not set in an idyllic ’50s community that to say the film packs a twist is not at twist at all. It’s disingenuous, easy, cheeky — much like the film itself, which starts off strong before crumbling into baffling storytelling choices made worse by the revolting intentions behind them. More frustrating is that the film also offers stunning craft work, a wonderfully immersive quality, and one of star Wilde’s first film, charming high-school comedy “Booksmart,” showed the actress-turned-filmmaker’s skill with directing her own cast. “Don’t Worry Darling” provides a major step up, both in the demands she’s placed on her performers and the need to build out its own world. Wilde re-teamed with her “Booksmart” screenwriter Katie Silberman, who refashioned a previous script from brothers Carey and Shane Van Dyke (yes, the grandsons of Dick Van Dyke), to present a lush fairy tale about people who seem to have it all. Seembeing the operative word here. Set in the perfectly designed town of Victory (as if “Leave It to Beaver” was set in Palm Springs), “Don’t Worry Darling” follows young housewife Alice Chamber (Pugh) as she begins to suspect that her lavish existence is, well, not what it seems. Despite the trappings of a prosperous suburban existence — handsome husband (Harry Styles), cute house, great outfits, ...

A superstar prima ballerina suffers for her art, and makes damn sure everybody else does, too, in this stylish psycho-thriller from documentarian turned feature director Birgitte Staermose. Shot on location at the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen, Darling feels like a Nordic remake of Darren Aronofksy’s Black Swan in places. It certainly has a comparable mood of feverish intensity and a strikingly similar plot, in which two female dancers battle over a juicy stage role while psycho-sexual fireworks explode backstage. World-premiered at the Darling is currently on theatrical release in Denmark. Backed by Zentropa, the home of Lars von Trier, Staermose’s crisp little chamber thriller is an old-fashioned pot-boiler at heart. But its polished mix of lurid melodrama and sexy Nordic eye candy should appeal to genre-friendly festivals and foreign buyers, particularly for small-screen platforms where the Scandi-Noir brand has a loyal niche audience. Serbian-born Danish actress Danica Curcic (recently seen on the short-lived Stephen King TV drama The Mist) plays Darling, a haughty prima ballerina returning to Copenhagen from a triumphant spell in New York to star in a flashy new hometown production of Giselle. Her choreographer husband Frans (Sweden’s Gustaf Skarsgard, son of Stellan and regular on the History Channel drama Vikings) is also working on the production, which outgoing company boss Kristian (Ulrich Thomsen) has lined up as his career-capping swan song. Complicating te...

Films about psychological abuse within relationships run the gamut of effectiveness. The scale goes everywhere from the lowkey cheesy Lifetime movie approach to the recent The Invisible Man (2020) kind of terrifying. But sometimes the more intimate approach can pack the biggest emotional wallop, as is the case with director Mary Nighy’s debut feature, Alice, Darling. Essentially a character study of the impact that gaslighting and manipulation by one partner over another has over time, writer Alanna Francis, Nighy, and star Anna Kendrick, as Alice, together paint a raw portrait of what being under a quietly conniving thumb in an isolating relationship looks like. While at times uncomfortable and bleak, Alice’s story is ultimately hopeful and important in portraying what a victim of mental abuse goes through inside and out. Unlike other abuse stories that often feel compelled to hang their narratives on dramatic inciting incidents or heinous acts, Alice, Darling instead tracks the minutiae that takes up so much space in Alice’s life with her artist boyfriend, Simon (Charlie Carrick). In an established relationship, it becomes immediately clear that Alice is driven to distraction by their dynamic. There are plenty of subtle tells from Alice twirling her hair with painful intensity around her index finger to her immediate Pavlovian response to his constant texts during a rare dinner with her best friends from childhood, Tess (Kaniehtiio Horn) and Sophia (Wunmi Mosaku). There’...

Don’t Worry Darling wants to be Get Out for white women, a strange concept even if it didn’t end up closer to “white feminist Antebellum.” From director Olivia Wilde and screenwriter Katie Silberman, it’s the tale of a young couple, Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack (Harry Styles), who live in a pristine 1950s company town, of which Alice slowly grows suspicious. The strange goings-on around her are complemented by eye-catching designs and inventive music, and are brought to life through commendable performances. However, the way these elements are assembled leaves plenty to be desired, amidst the film’s pursuit of dimensionless literalism about women in American society. It sets a low bar to begin with before failing to clear it. When the story opens, its characters seem content. Alice and Jack — childless by choice — drink, make merry, and play party games with their guests, Bunny (Wilde) and Bill (Nick Kroll), who have two kids, and Peg (Kate Berlant) and Peter (Asif Ali), who are expecting their first. Neither the alliterative couple names nor the respective parent dynamics plays any meaningful part, but the fluidity of this opening scene is a precursor to the rigidity of the next morning, and every morning after that, when the women stand out on their driveways, smiling as they watch their men all leave for work at the same time in their shiny cars. They live in the newly built town of Victory, part of the mysterious “Victory Project” run by the enigmatic, secretive Fran...

A nna Kendrick gives a vehement, self-aware lead performance in this Alice (Kendrick) is in a toxic relationship with Simon (Charlie Carrick), an arrogant, controlling man with an uncertain career as an artist, in constant need of reassurance and always tracking Alice’s movements. When Alice is allowed out for a rare evening at a bar with her two best friends Tess (Kaniehtiio Horn) and Sophie ( Francis’s script allows us to notice that her friend Tess is also an artist (but less successful than obnoxious, strutting Simon), and we can see the queasy irony in Alice having possibly met Simon in Tess’s circle, and how he is coldly taking her away from them. Tensely aware that Simon won’t like it, Alice accepts an invitation to go away on a vacation with Tess and Sophie but tells him it’s a work trip she can’t get out of. How long will Simon be fooled by that? Kendrick is capable of creating an arrhythmic heartbeat of tension and fear in her screen presence: this is someone who is gradually being deprived of emotional oxygen. But sometimes the tendons in the script go slack – and there is also something here which doesn’t quite allow the relationship between Alice and her friends, and relationship of Tess and Sophie with each other, to become fully three-dimensional. Well, it’s a very strong performance from Kendrick, who disturbingly conveys the tiny and not so tiny symptoms of emotional abuse. Alice, Darling is released on 20 January in cinemas in the US and UK with an Austra...

• Share this article on Facebook • Share this article on Twitter • Share this article on Flipboard • Share this article on Email • Show additional share options • Share this article on Linkedin • Share this article on Pinit • Share this article on Reddit • Share this article on Tumblr • Share this article on Whatsapp • Share this article on Print • Share this article on Comment A superstar prima ballerina suffers for her art, and makes damn sure everybody else does, too, in this stylish psycho-thriller from documentarian turned feature director Birgitte Staermose. Shot on location at the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen, Darling feels like a Nordic remake of Darren Aronofksy’s Black Swan in places. It certainly has a comparable mood of feverish intensity and a strikingly similar plot, in which two female dancers battle over a juicy stage role while psycho-sexual fireworks explode backstage. World-premiered at the Darling is currently on theatrical release in Denmark. Backed by Zentropa, the home of Lars von Trier, Staermose’s crisp little chamber thriller is an old-fashioned pot-boiler at heart. But its polished mix of lurid melodrama and sexy Nordic eye candy should appeal to genre-friendly festivals and foreign buyers, particularly for small-screen platforms where the Scandi-Noir brand has a loyal niche audience. Serbian-born Danish actress Danica Curcic (recently seen on the short-lived Stephen King TV drama The Mist) plays Darling, a haughty prima ballerina returning ...

Films about psychological abuse within relationships run the gamut of effectiveness. The scale goes everywhere from the lowkey cheesy Lifetime movie approach to the recent The Invisible Man (2020) kind of terrifying. But sometimes the more intimate approach can pack the biggest emotional wallop, as is the case with director Mary Nighy’s debut feature, Alice, Darling. Essentially a character study of the impact that gaslighting and manipulation by one partner over another has over time, writer Alanna Francis, Nighy, and star Anna Kendrick, as Alice, together paint a raw portrait of what being under a quietly conniving thumb in an isolating relationship looks like. While at times uncomfortable and bleak, Alice’s story is ultimately hopeful and important in portraying what a victim of mental abuse goes through inside and out. Unlike other abuse stories that often feel compelled to hang their narratives on dramatic inciting incidents or heinous acts, Alice, Darling instead tracks the minutiae that takes up so much space in Alice’s life with her artist boyfriend, Simon (Charlie Carrick). In an established relationship, it becomes immediately clear that Alice is driven to distraction by their dynamic. There are plenty of subtle tells from Alice twirling her hair with painful intensity around her index finger to her immediate Pavlovian response to his constant texts during a rare dinner with her best friends from childhood, Tess (Kaniehtiio Horn) and Sophia (Wunmi Mosaku). There’...

Don’t Worry Darling wants to be Get Out for white women, a strange concept even if it didn’t end up closer to “white feminist Antebellum.” From director Olivia Wilde and screenwriter Katie Silberman, it’s the tale of a young couple, Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack (Harry Styles), who live in a pristine 1950s company town, of which Alice slowly grows suspicious. The strange goings-on around her are complemented by eye-catching designs and inventive music, and are brought to life through commendable performances. However, the way these elements are assembled leaves plenty to be desired, amidst the film’s pursuit of dimensionless literalism about women in American society. It sets a low bar to begin with before failing to clear it. When the story opens, its characters seem content. Alice and Jack — childless by choice — drink, make merry, and play party games with their guests, Bunny (Wilde) and Bill (Nick Kroll), who have two kids, and Peg (Kate Berlant) and Peter (Asif Ali), who are expecting their first. Neither the alliterative couple names nor the respective parent dynamics plays any meaningful part, but the fluidity of this opening scene is a precursor to the rigidity of the next morning, and every morning after that, when the women stand out on their driveways, smiling as they watch their men all leave for work at the same time in their shiny cars. They live in the newly built town of Victory, part of the mysterious “Victory Project” run by the enigmatic, secretive Fran...

It would be easy to kick off a review of It also would be incorrect, because everything actually iswhat it seems in Victory. “Don’t Worry Darling” is so clearly, so obviously not set in an idyllic ’50s community that to say the film packs a twist is not at twist at all. It’s disingenuous, easy, cheeky — much like the film itself, which starts off strong before crumbling into baffling storytelling choices made worse by the revolting intentions behind them. More frustrating is that the film also offers stunning craft work, a wonderfully immersive quality, and one of star Wilde’s first film, charming high-school comedy “Booksmart,” showed the actress-turned-filmmaker’s skill with directing her own cast. “Don’t Worry Darling” provides a major step up, both in the demands she’s placed on her performers and the need to build out its own world. Wilde re-teamed with her “Booksmart” screenwriter Katie Silberman, who refashioned a previous script from brothers Carey and Shane Van Dyke (yes, the grandsons of Dick Van Dyke), to present a lush fairy tale about people who seem to have it all. Seembeing the operative word here. Set in the perfectly designed town of Victory (as if “Leave It to Beaver” was set in Palm Springs), “Don’t Worry Darling” follows young housewife Alice Chamber (Pugh) as she begins to suspect that her lavish existence is, well, not what it seems. Despite the trappings of a prosperous suburban existence — handsome husband (Harry Styles), cute house, great outfits, ...