Darling (1965): A Review (Review #1860)

 

DARLING

Beauty is fleeting, and so is the idea that happiness can be found outside yourself. Darling is a tale of searching for joy and not finding it even where the beautiful people, rich in gold, reside. 

Diana Scott (Julie Christie) should have it all. She's beautiful, a model by profession, married to stale but dependable Tony Bridges (Trevor Bowen). She casually begins an affair with journalist Robert Gold (Dirk Bogarde) who leaves his wife and children to shack up with Diana.

Their bliss, however, does not fulfill Diana. She has moved on emotionally to ad executive Miles Brand (Laurence Harvey), who gets her parts in films. He also gets his parts in her, which she is fine with. Miles is new and exciting, if self-absorbed and decadent. Diana gets knocked up, aborts the child to keep her career going, and keeps mingling with the glitterati of film, culture and wealth.

Eventually, her liaisons with both Miles and Robert taper off, fueled in part by Diana's fleeting interests in things and mutual jealousies between her and Robert. Despite her floundering personal life, Diana keeps moving upwards as the Happiness Girl, promoting a line of chocolates. This brings her in contact with Prince Cesare della Romita (Jose Luis de Villalonga) when his palace is used to film a commercial. Extending her Italian holiday with her photographer friend Malcolm (Roland Curran), she initially thinks Prince Cesare has come to propose marriage on behalf of his son, Cuzio. She is surprised to learn that it is the Prince himself who wants to marry her.

She at first declines, but finding her relationship with Robert fading, she rushes to Italy to become the Principessa della Romita. Alas, the life of a princess is empty, with nothing to do and the Prince off in Rome for long periods on business. Will Diana live up to her moniker of The Happiness Girl? What will become of her and Robert, the only man she thinks she truly loves?

Darling is an ironic title. Diana is called "Darling" by many people, and she is a darling creature physically. However, she is no true darling as she flits and flitters through life, unsatisfied and unable to stay long enough with one thing. There is a deep tragedy to Diana, someone who has everything on a surface level to have whatever she wants but who does not know what she wants. Even if she did know, Diana would not be focused enough to get it. She is surrounded by all the bright young things, who look at her with admiration but not with respect.

Perhaps that is because, in a way, she does not respect herself. Diana is beautiful, and she is not vapid or dim. Instead, she is perpetually unfulfilled, longing for something that she cannot identify. She has lovers but not love. She cares for and loves children but will sacrifice her own for her career. She wants success but does not have ambition. Diana moves up in life from model to actress to princess, but it is not a cold and calculated plan. Rather, things just come to her. Diana does not move by her own thoughts. She rather moves with the tides. There is an immense longing and tragedy to Diana, making her less a figure of fascination but a figure of pity.

Julie Christie won the Best Actress Academy Award for Darling, and it is an excellent performance. As Diana, Christie does not portray her as a villain or a victim. Rather, she is a flawed figure, lost, like the "darling child" she is described on early in the film. Darling has an interesting technique of giving Diana a voiceover where, presumably during an interview, she narrates much of her life. As she goes from man to man, career to career, searching, always searching, we feel not hatred or disgust but deep sympathy.

Darling also won Best Original Screenplay for Fredrick Raphael, and the film has some surprisingly sharp and cutting lines. At a decadent Parisian party where Diana is spoofed, her impersonator is jokingly asked as Diana, "What will you do in your next movie?". "I don't know the name of it," her impersonator says, "but I'll definitely do it". After Robert confronts her with her infidelity and efforts at deception, he calls her a whore. "Your idea of fidelity is not having more than one man in the bed at the same time," Robert bitchily snaps.   

Raphael's script also reveals much in subtle terms. When she goes to Miles for an assignation, she parks her car and puts a large amount in the meter. As her sexual encounter continues, the meter reads first "Excess charge". Once she and Miles go all in, the meter switches to "Penalty". The double meaning is well-executed. Her voiceover description of her abortion is subtle and softly spoken, almost as if she is describing a friend's miscarriage. There is deliberate irony in having the Principessa della Romita on magazine covers as "The Ideal Woman". 

Dirk Bogarde and Laurence Harvey balance Christie as the more stable Robert, a man of literature and Miles, a more arrogant and narcissistic man. John Schlesinger, who received a Best Director nomination for Darling, guided his cast to strong performances. John Dankworth's jazz score also works well in this decadent world.

If Darling has an issue with me, it is the film's length, which is a little over two hours. I think her sojourn in Italy with her delightfully gay friend Malcolm could have been trimmed. While I find the film was long, Darling is still a fascinating portrait of a tragic woman, beautiful but lost. 

DECISION: B+