Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9168 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-03-05
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 129 minutes

Synopsis
Julie Christie won an Oscar for her performance as a professional model who marries an Italian nobleman. Her lust for wealth and success eventually destroy her. Directed by John Schlesinger (MIDNIGHT COWBOY, BILLY LIAR).

Customer Reviews

Dark Glamour
This is one of the best films of the 1960s and 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) and the performaces from all the cast are wonderful. The portrait of swinging London is gripping - the parties, the shallowness and the sense that the world was changing is intense - London was the most fashionable place on earth at the time and the film really captures that spirit. See this film if you want a master-class in fine acting.

Flawed Beauty
"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 and yet hateful. In some respects she appears to be desperate for love and affection, yet in her desire to find these she thinks nothing of breaking up marriages and 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, and 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, and she complies with it all in her bid for fame and fortune. Ultimately she gains all that she wants materialistically, but she is left empty as a person, and unbearably lonely despite having everything she'd ever wanted.

'Darling' (an ironically 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.

Bleak and Beautiful
This film may be set in swinging London, but it's a world away from the good natured celebrations of coolness and fabness that films whose action was centred on Carnaby Street tended to be. In Schlesinger's London, marriage to your first love - however settled and however many kds you have - will inevitably end in divorce when you meet someone younger and 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 and 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 and grace.

Played by anyone other than Julie Christie, Diana would be insufferable and spending two and a half hours in her company would be a deeply uncomfortable experience - but Jule Christie gives her vulnerability and lets us see the genuine unhappiness underneath the charm and 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 and has a fine John Dankworth soundtrack. This is one of British Cinema's better movies.