Darling: One woman’s fight against fatality
Released today by Gaumont on 113 screens, Christine Carrière's Darling [+see also:
trailer
film profile] stands out amongst current French productions.
Tracing the story of a young woman who attempts to escape from a disadvantaged social milieu but instead is sucked into a spiral of alcoholism and domestic violence, the film’s impressive cast brings together two very popular actors, Marina Foïs and Guillaume Canet, who have gone against the grain and sacrificed their usual salaries to make the project possible. A personal commitment that nonetheless failed to convince television broadcasters, doubtless put off by the harsh subject matter, to invest in the feature.
Written by the director and Pascal Arnold, the screenplay is based on the book by Jean Teulé. Darling succeeds in depicting the harsh reality of life on the fringes of the economic and cultural Fourth World in France without nonetheless succumbing to bleakness. This delicate balancing act is made possible by the exceptional performance of Foïs, an actress whose career to date has been limited to comic roles but who here reveals hidden dramatic talents.
Brought up in a house next to a motorway in Lower-Normandy in a family of farmers dominated by a cruel father, Darling dreams of escaping from her surroundings. But her marriage to a hard-drinking lorry driver (Canet) will plunge her into a hellish existence as an abused and humiliated housewife and mother. This is the portrait of a woman defeated by life but who never gives up her struggle, attempting to maintain her dignity and remain seductive against all odds.
Produced by Rectangle Productions and co-produced by Gaumont, Darling heralds the return of a filmmaker highly lauded at Locarno in 1994 for Rosine and selected in the 1999 Director’s Fortnight with Who Plucked the Feathers Off the Moon?.
The €3.94m film received €380,000 advance on receipts from the National Centre for Cinematography (CNC), pre-sales from Canal+ and Ciné Cinéma, and €230,000 of financial support from the Ile-de-France region.
Releases this Wednesday also include the documentary My Enemy’s Enemy by British director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King Of Scotland [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), a study of the Nazi Klaus Barbie, distributed on 35 screens by Wild Bunch Distribution. Further titles include The Commune (Paris, 1871) by Peter Watkins (Shellac, three screens), Tête d'or [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (“Golden Head”) by Gilles Blanchard (Pierre Grise Distribution, five screens) and David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, starring Vincent Cassel.
(Translated from French)
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