Definitely a period film for those interested in identifying old cars, hairstyles and suchlike. One gets used to the black and white. Script full of silly egoistic banter with rather poor jokes (to us, anyway). I suppose the 60s were a bit like this movie but a lot seems just plain silly. A lot of facial expression shots that don't quite fit with the story development. Continuity suffers as a result of this. Was Julie Christie well cast? The Diana personality does not really fit her good looks and class - and she certainly comes over as a rather greedy and ignorant person who does not know herself at all. Her looking at herself in the mirror whilst kissing Robert (Dirk Bogarde) taught her nothing. Lousy relationships and trouble all round.

I saw this film recently when it appeared as part of Fox Classics Australia's Spotlight on British New Wave Cinema.Also included were "Look Back in Anger", "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", "Georgie Girl" and "Alfie". What an extraordinary collection of films. I remember how exciting they were when first released - they were real game changers.Discounting obvious superficialities such as hairstyles, clothes and automobiles, "Darling" in particular still seems fresh and vibrant to me. I was surprised to read that some serious critics dismiss it these days using words like modish, trendy, flashy, cynical and most damning of all, "out of touch with the realities of the life-styles that it purports to represent". However, judging the film purely on its entertainment value today, I would be more likely to use words such as compelling, clever, poignant and original.Julie Christie captures the spirit of Diana Scott, the beautiful young model who bounces from lover to lover only to realise that she bounced one time to many; in a heart-wrenching finale, she comes to see how shallow and unfulfilled her life has been, and that it is not possible to turn back the clock.Julie Christie dazzles in this film; from this distance you can appreciate just how unique she was, and how her beauty helped define the look of the 60's. However, beyond the Swinging 60's, I think her character shows how easily doors can open for beautiful people, but if the wrong ones are chosen, eventually age and lost opportunities join forces to bring the fun to a grinding halt.Good as Dirk Bogarde is as Robert Gold, the standout for me among the other stars is Laurence Harvey. He plays a variation on the good-looking, arrogant cad that he had made his own whether from the upper class, the working class or even defending the walls of the Alamo; I've always found him eminently watchable, and he is perfect as the licentious Miles Brand.Director John Schlesinger, cut his teeth making documentaries and you can see the influence in the way the film is structured. Although some critics felt he was overly influenced by the films of Godard, Bergman and Antonioni, I would say that it was more his documentary background that allowed him to bring a fresh perspective to the film."Darling" is a great looking film that benefits from location shooting in England, France and Italy. More than just a film for the archives, "Darling" still gets you in. The film won many accolades when it was first released, and as far as I'm concerned it hasn't lost much of its lustre at all.

John Schlesinger's perhaps the only film director to mail feces to a critic. The critics loved "Darling", though, his 1965 film starring Julie Christie as Diana Scott, a vapid model who rises to the top of London's fashion scene. Like many British films at the time ("The Prime of Miss Jean Brody" et al), "Darling's" very much a reaction to a changing London. And so in response to women's rights, feminist movements, and a growth in "liberal" attitudes toward religion, sex, contraceptives, marriage and abortion, came films like "Darling", in which sex, independence, non-committance, glamour, money and female desires are seen to be "bad", "bad", "bad". Veering away from traditional morals and conservative values, in other words, leads to broken families, superficiality, advertisement junkies who worship at the cult of celebrity and brain dead independent women. A year later the British film "Alfie" would tell the same tale, only now with a vapid male lead. A decade later American cinema would begin to do the same ("Kramer vs Kramer" and various reactionary "women's pictures").What seems like a simple, prudish moral agenda, however, is made complicated by screenwriter Frederic Raphael. He juxtaposes glamorous billboards, cocktail parties, social climbers and extravagant wealth with African butlers and "World Relief" banners. Elsewhere Diana's philandering is shown to break up marriages and her "casual scheming" is shown to hurt various people. Actions have consequences, then, and desires are oft petty and selfish at best, harmful at worst. Thanks to Raphael's pen, what seems reactionary in the civil rights era now seems precedent to Generation Facebook. Interestingly, the film's plot is almost identical to 1933's "Baby Face", the Depression Era tale of a social climber who debases herself and abuses everyone in her way, all in the pursuit of fame and cash.Whilst "Darling's" first half is satirical, its second half is mostly weak soap opera. Here Diana is ruthlessly punished for her aspirations – desires the film never acknowledges are forced upon her - and finally ends up a lonely woman with seven stepchildren. Schlesinger and Raphael perhaps want you to see this as a form of comeuppance, of justice, but get more than they bargain for with Christie. Her "villain" emerges as a sympathetic character.7/10 – Worth one viewing.

Diana Scott (Julie Christie) has just made the cover of "Ideal Woman" magazine. In a flashback, she recalls her rise to fame and fortune, beginning as a 20-year old would-be model in swinging-sixties London. She was beautiful, hip, and full of life, gliding easily through affairs and enjoying the good life.Christie was so young and beautiful in this movie! Even with the black and white photography, she's luminous, dynamic, and, yes, darling. In her Oscar-winning role, she climbs the social ladder using Dirk Bogarde and Lawrence Harvey as two of her stepping stones; they're both excellent.The movie is such a product of it's time (1965) and puts so much emphasis on her trendy wardrobe that it seemed a bit dated to me. Also, there were a few scenes when I thought she hammed it up too much, but still I enjoyed her and the movie and recommend it.