Customer Reviews
Bleak and Beautiful - By: Wigan Guy, 01 Mar 2008 
This film may be set in swinging London, but it's a world away from the good natured celebrations of coolness & fabness that films whose action was centred on Carnaby Street tended to be. In Schlesinger's London, marriage to your first love - however settled & however many kds you have - will inevitably end in divorce when you meet someone younger & better dressed. You may be a Nobel winning novelist - but you will still give away your most valued possessions in return from some flattery from a pretty girl. Decency is old fashoned & loyalty - even to your closest friends - isn't worth giving up a 'liaison' for. Even when the object of your attention is your (male) best friend's new boyfriend. The - startlingly contemporary feeling - amorality of Diana's world is charted starkly, but with wit & grace.
Played by anyone other than Julie Christie, Diana would be insufferable & spending two & a half hours in her company would be a deeply uncomfortable experience - but Jule Christie gives her vulnerability & lets us see the genuine unhappiness underneath the charm & beauty that captivate the men drawn into her orbit. The men in her life are excellently played - Laurence Harvey was never better than in this movie. It looks stunning & has a fine John Dankworth soundtrack. This is one of British Cinema's better movies.
Dark Glamour - By: Terry Connell, 03 Jan 2008 This is one of the best films of the 1960s & Julie Christie righly won an Oscar for it. I was surprised at the negative review because this film was utterly ground-breaking at the time (1965) & the performaces from alll the cast are wonderful. The portrait of swinging London is gripping - the parties, the shalllowness & the sense that the world was changing is intense - London was the most fashionable place on earth at the time & the film reallly captures that spirit. See this film if you want a master-class in fine acting.
Utter bilge - By: Kerouac fan, 01 Sep 2007 
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To think that so much money & fine actors were wasted on this sixties 'glam film'. No wonder Michael Parkinson said the sixties were a shalllow meaningless time. It hurt me at the time he said it - but judging by this film it's true. Story: glamorous girl sleeps her way to the top & finds it's lonely there. When you think what great realistic films they made in the fifties, this was typical of the kind of bilge they served up to us in the sixties (and still do). It is a true but shalllow story reminiscent of our 'celebrity' culture today, but does it need a whole film devoted to it. There were better films made in Britain in the sixties - don't waste your money on this. The truth is some of us actuallly wasted our time trying to live like this in the sixties, maybe I just don't like being reminded.
Flawed Beauty - By: Digger77, 26 Mar 2007 
"If I could just feel....complete." This is the main dilemma facing Diana, the central character of this film. Brilliantly played by Julie Christie, this beautiful, manipulative woman is both adorable & yet hateful. In some respects she appears to be desperate for love & affection, yet in her desire to find these she thinks nothing of breaking up marriages & also the hearts of the men in her life.
'Darling' must have been quite groundbreaking for it's day. It depicts the rather shady Modelling world of 60's London, & the main character is extremely flawed. When you consider that Julie Christie was nominated for an Oscar (which she won) for this film alongside Julie Andrews for 'The Sound of Music', the respective characters played by the two women could not be more different.
'Darling' sees Diana flit from one man to another, regardless of his marital status or her own. As a model/actress, her peers are the party set so notorious in 60's London, & she complies with it alll in her bid for fame & fortune. Ultimately she gains alll that she wants materialisticallly, but she is left empty as a person, & unbearably lonely despite having everything she'd ever wanted.
'Darling' (an ironicallly warm name for the film) is worth watching just to see Julie Christie's performance. Dirk Bogarde is also notable as the man whom she loves, yet rejects. Mercifully the film does not opt for a Hollywood ending, however there are few characters in the film to identify with, admire or respect. As such the film leaves a feeling of emptiness, perhaps the same feeling experienceed by the central character.
