Simply ,"Darling " is one of the ten best movies of the French naughties.
Made by a woman ,who perhaps remembered Ida Lupino or Barbara Loden and that only a woman can feel what a woman can endure .
Set in Normandie ,based on a true story -which makes the movie even more powerful-,where many atrocious Guy De Maupassant's short stories happened ,"Darling " is the story of a girl tossed by the tides of misfortune.You will not believe your eyes when you see all the things she had to cope with in her unfortunate life .
Her family has a history of mental/physical illness,which gives the story a Zolaesque touch .The father is a crude uneducated brute who bullies his daughter who forgot to say "happy birthday "The mother does not like THAT girl she treats like a dog.The poor thing finds comfort in the baker's shop where a good woman -perhaps the only positive person she has ever met in her whole life -takes care of her and gives her a fleeting feeling of a maternal love.
The only way out for a girl like her could be marriage.She meets a handsome truck driver and on the very day of her wedding she understands -the father had warned her before ,as if a curse was on her from the beginning- that happiness is not for her :the wine on her wedding dress,looking like blood,and the wedding ring ,probably bought in the local dime store.The boy is flighty,he starts to drink hard and he brings his lovers home ,asking his wife to take part and enjoying humiliating her :we learn in one of the most desperate scenes ever filmed ,that the three children are watching the scene from the window:but the director does not show it ;horror you suggest is much more effective that when it is depicted in lavish details.
Marina Foïs gives a harrowing performance with admirable restraint:we almost never see her cry and when she talks to her (female) lawyer -a woman who will never understand that she was born to sweet delight when some like her "client" are born to endless night- in a voice choked with emotion ,she asks her to write in her report that "she was a beautiful girl" .
And that may be the key of the movie:its lack of success,the fact that three years after its release ,nobody has written a single line about it ,the heroine explains it to us:people don't want to hear about other people's s..... they want stories which happen to good -looking persons. When a movie does not spare the sordid details -my brother ,he looks like a table football player!-,when the pain is at its fiercest ,such things scare "normal" people who do nothing but pity those poor things born under a bad sign.
"Darling" who has reached the depths of despair ,never gives up.Everything she does backfires on her ,but until the very end,she never resigns herself.And however the terrifying story is about to continue through her children ;on the highway,trying one more time to reverse the situation ,to fight ill-fortune,she begins to teach her three little children the alphabet in a very unusual way.Her attitude may be interpreted as a rebellion against the educated world where she and her children will always be outcasts.
Marina Foïs ,in a part many actresses would never even think of playing ,achieves the feat of being almost pretty at the end of the movie.She would have deserved a Cesar ,but people like "winning women" best.Guillaume Canet ,cast against type ,shows one more time he is one the best actors of his generation.All the supporting actors ,from the mum who bawls "Les Gars De La Marine" to the brother who takes his life after warning his parents to the young actress who plays the heroine when she was a plump little girl despised by all the schoolboys and girls of the village ,all are excellent .And I'm looking forward to seeing more movies of Christine Carrière.This is the kind of movie we need today more than ever..
Like this? try these.....
"Rosetta" (Dardenne Bros,1999) "Wanda" (Barbara Loden,1970) "L'Enfance Nue" (Maurice Pialat,1968) "Poor Cow" (1967)"Ladybird ,ladybird"(1994) and "Kes"(1969) (Kenneth Loach) "Poil De Carotte" (Julien Duvivier)(1925 and 1932)
Made by a woman ,who perhaps remembered Ida Lupino or Barbara Loden and that only a woman can feel what a woman can endure .
Set in Normandie ,based on a true story -which makes the movie even more powerful-,where many atrocious Guy De Maupassant's short stories happened ,"Darling " is the story of a girl tossed by the tides of misfortune.You will not believe your eyes when you see all the things she had to cope with in her unfortunate life .
Her family has a history of mental/physical illness,which gives the story a Zolaesque touch .The father is a crude uneducated brute who bullies his daughter who forgot to say "happy birthday "The mother does not like THAT girl she treats like a dog.The poor thing finds comfort in the baker's shop where a good woman -perhaps the only positive person she has ever met in her whole life -takes care of her and gives her a fleeting feeling of a maternal love.
The only way out for a girl like her could be marriage.She meets a handsome truck driver and on the very day of her wedding she understands -the father had warned her before ,as if a curse was on her from the beginning- that happiness is not for her :the wine on her wedding dress,looking like blood,and the wedding ring ,probably bought in the local dime store.The boy is flighty,he starts to drink hard and he brings his lovers home ,asking his wife to take part and enjoying humiliating her :we learn in one of the most desperate scenes ever filmed ,that the three children are watching the scene from the window:but the director does not show it ;horror you suggest is much more effective that when it is depicted in lavish details.
Marina Foïs gives a harrowing performance with admirable restraint:we almost never see her cry and when she talks to her (female) lawyer -a woman who will never understand that she was born to sweet delight when some like her "client" are born to endless night- in a voice choked with emotion ,she asks her to write in her report that "she was a beautiful girl" .
And that may be the key of the movie:its lack of success,the fact that three years after its release ,nobody has written a single line about it ,the heroine explains it to us:people don't want to hear about other people's s..... they want stories which happen to good -looking persons. When a movie does not spare the sordid details -my brother ,he looks like a table football player!-,when the pain is at its fiercest ,such things scare "normal" people who do nothing but pity those poor things born under a bad sign.
"Darling" who has reached the depths of despair ,never gives up.Everything she does backfires on her ,but until the very end,she never resigns herself.And however the terrifying story is about to continue through her children ;on the highway,trying one more time to reverse the situation ,to fight ill-fortune,she begins to teach her three little children the alphabet in a very unusual way.Her attitude may be interpreted as a rebellion against the educated world where she and her children will always be outcasts.
Marina Foïs ,in a part many actresses would never even think of playing ,achieves the feat of being almost pretty at the end of the movie.She would have deserved a Cesar ,but people like "winning women" best.Guillaume Canet ,cast against type ,shows one more time he is one the best actors of his generation.All the supporting actors ,from the mum who bawls "Les Gars De La Marine" to the brother who takes his life after warning his parents to the young actress who plays the heroine when she was a plump little girl despised by all the schoolboys and girls of the village ,all are excellent .And I'm looking forward to seeing more movies of Christine Carrière.This is the kind of movie we need today more than ever..
Like this? try these.....
"Rosetta" (Dardenne Bros,1999) "Wanda" (Barbara Loden,1970) "L'Enfance Nue" (Maurice Pialat,1968) "Poor Cow" (1967)"Ladybird ,ladybird"(1994) and "Kes"(1969) (Kenneth Loach) "Poil De Carotte" (Julien Duvivier)(1925 and 1932)