DARLING
Does as the Romans do
released OUT NOW! 2015 | 18 | DVD
Director Mickey Keating Cast lauren ashley Carter, sean Young, larry Fessenden
“There’s not a movie like it,” writer/director Mickey Keating says of Darling. There’s an obvious retort: “Yeah, there is. Repulsion.”
To be fair, Keating also acknowledges the obvious debt that this tale of a young woman’s psychological fracturing owes to Roman Polanski’s filmography. Lauren Ashley Carter plays the titular house-sitter, a moon-eyed gothic Alice charged with looking after a New York residence with a mysterious locked room. Soon some malefic influence is driving her over the edge...
What separates this black and white chiller from its ’60s forebears is its sense of style, one as deliberate as a handtailored mod suit. An over-reliance on jittery jumpcuts and stroboscopic lighting eventually starts to feel gimmicky, but for the most part this is elegant filmmaking, which – with its chanteuses warbling from crackly vinyl and icing-pink intertitles calligraphy – has an appealingly timeless quality, and the simplicity of a fairytale.
However, it never seems like anything more than an exercise in style. Don’t expect to actually feel anything, other than an appreciation for the director’s impeccable taste.
Extras Three snippets of director interview (seven minutes); the trailer. Ian Berriman
The house used as the main location was found by star Lauren Ashley Carter – she was working as a dog walker for the owner.