If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Diana Scott (Julie Christie) climbs the ladder as a model and an aspiring actress. She marries young to Tony Bridges. Then she leaves him when for TV interviewer Robert Gold who was also married at the time. Then she has a relationship with advertising executive Miles Brand. Then she marries Prince Cesare della Romita after meeting him in Italy. Only her newest marriage isn't a happy one.Julie Christie won the Oscar for best actress. She puts in a wide ranging performance. It was also a big year for her with her other movie 'Doctor Zhivago'. The movie also won for best original screenplay. I'm not as impressed with that. It just seems like writer Frederic Raphael jammed everything from the tabloid pages into this movie. The black and white also took me by surprise a little. The cover of the DVD is in color. I think color would have worked much better for this character. Julie Christie does some good work but I don't see much else in this.

This drama about a fashion model sleeping her way to the top is very much a product of its times. The main point of this film seems to be to promote the newfound sexual freedom of the 1960s. Not only does the protagonist go bed-hopping, but she also strikes up a close friendship with a gay photographer, signaling the filmmakers' tolerance of homosexuality. There is nothing wrong with the liberal agenda if it's integrated into an engaging story. No such luck here. There is really very little by way of plot; it's mainly a series of meandering events that soon turns dreary and drags on far too long. Christie is fine in her Oscar-winning role and Bogarde and Harvey also fare well.

This was supposed to be the satire on the movers and shakers of the sixties. Sorry I thought it was rubbish when it was released, and in 2010 it still is terrible. An ambitious model in the swinging sixties sleeps her way to the top - yes, it's Evita in the UK! It too self consciously tries to be a Britflick aping of Antonioni (La Notte and Blow UP) and Fellini (La Dolce Vita and 8 and a half) and it does not work - witness the dreadfully arch 'cinema verite' sequence and the partner-swapping orgy scenes. Really the continentals do that sort of thing much much better - even the actors look embarrassed!Satire? Um the best scenes are actually a satire on British society in the fifties, eg the scene in the casino is actually the writer having a go at the Princess Margaret/Billy Wallace Soho set showing old decrepit aristos clinging to privilege after the War. But nowhere does the movie really have a go at the hypocrisy surrounding the MacMillan/Wilson years - it merely portrays a few louche unbelievable characters indulging in sexual freedom away from the gaze of society as a whole. Let's face it Julie Christie's character is really an upper middle class aspirant trying to get ahead to join the beastly aristos. The direction and writing is plodding - Raphael was much better in 'Nothing But The Best.' The acting is fine apart from Julie Christie (who wears a lot of nice clothes) who just pouts a lot and keeps telling us she is bored in a very actressy sort of way. I thought then she was not much of an actress, and 'Doctor Zhivago' confirmed it. Her looks got the critics, who of course inhabited the world portrayed on screen so though it was a marvellous expose, dahling! When in fact the film is a bore with nothing really to claim your attention either from an historical point of view or interest in the characters (we got very early on the Laurence Harvey was Mephostophiles so why keep it going for so long?) Of course, you may ask, why do we not see 'Darling' on our TV screens? Well, it is a story about a vacuous, scheming, bed hopping, blonde clothes horse, who ends up trapped in a loveless marriage where her husband has other women, and is called Princess Diana! Um, perhaps, the film was a prescient look into the future of the celebrity culture!

Despite beings graced by one of the finest screen performances in post-1950 cinema - Julie Christie as "Diana Scott" - this film as a whole has become somewhat forgotten - infrequently revived and often dismissed as a dated, overly-trendy 1960s period piece (as can be seen by reading many of the IMDb reviews on this site!). Seen as a bit of production design, DARLING is indeed wholly of its time, but if you can you look past the clothes, hair, music and now-faintly-ridiculous slang, DARLING becomes something quite different - a serious exploration of the transformation in manners and morals which overwhelmed the world in the mid-60s and continues to shape all our lives today. DARLING is seen by many as a "satire," but for this reviewer, DARLING is something more - a conservative film in the true sense of the word, a work which holds the new morality of our age up to a harsh light and forces us to ask some very hard questions about ourselves and the world in which we live now. DARLING tells a very traditional story - that of an ambitious woman who uses her face and figure to climb into society's upper echelons - but unlike similar characters such as Vanity Fair's Becky Sharp or Edith Wharton's Undine Spragg, Diana Scott is less interested in rising to the top of Europe's landed aristocracy or the American Old Guard than she is in securing a place in the "New Aristocracy" of Cafe Society, where lineage and breeding matter less than looks, money and publicity. As the story opens, Diana Scott is a young English rose gifted less with brains and ambition than an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time. Wanting something more than her council-flat, working-class background can provide, Diana chooses marriage as her way out, but she quickly sheds her bumbling teenage husband when she meets Robert Gold (Dirk Bogarde), a well-known (and married) TV journalist who becomes infatuated with the free-spirited young model and eventually succumbs to her demand that he leave his wife for her. Domestic bliss proves short-lived, however, as Robert's quiet, scholarly, and intellectual life-style bores the restless Diana out of her wits. Seeking a more exciting world than Robert can offer, Diana allows rich cad Miles Brand (Lawrence Harvey) to seduce her. Becoming part of his fast-moving "swinging" set, Diana heads off to the Continent and finds herself running around with a wild crowd and becoming more and more well-known as a model, actress, and "personality" despite her complete lack of artistic talent - in one pivotal scene, Diana actually flees an important audition! Eventually, Diana attracts the attention of a minor European royal - an Italian Prince - who courts her and eventually marries her in due course of time. The marriage ensures Diana a place in the rarefied world of international celebrity at the cost of her personal happiness, since it rapidly becomes obvious that she is nothing more than a trophy wife - the Prince leaves his new wife buried in the country to make incommunicado trips to Rome, ostensibly to visit his "mother". Realizing that she has made a terrible mistake, Diana escapes to England and tries to reconnect with Robert Gold - whom she now thinks was her one true love - and for one night she succeeds, but Robert quashes her fantasies of a new life together very fast when he informs her that he agreed to meet her for the sake of old times and in fact has no intention of allowing her back into his life. Rejected, Diana returns to Italy, hounded by the press and facing an uncertain future. Julie Christie is simply flawless as Diana, who cannot be blamed for the vanity and superficiality of the world around her and still manages to come across as an innocent no matter how many men she sleeps with or how many drugs she takes. DARLING is sometimes a bit heavy-handed and obvious in parts, but it remains valuable today as a critique of the new manners and morals of the 60s. The film's cinematographic style is extraordinary - Schlesinger and his DP shoot the tale in a cold, distant fashion which prevents us from identifying ourselves fully with any single character and makes the film seem like a documentary rather than a work of fiction. DARLING's detached, cold style sheds an interesting light on the characters and their activities - we are encouraged to observe, watch, evaluate and judge these rootless, disconnected, superficial people along with the society they inhabit. Of course, the film's final irony is that Diana Scott spends the whole thing longing for deep intimacy and true connection with another, only to lose the love of her life because she was incapable of appreciating him until it is too late, and preferred glitter to gold. Don't miss this remarkable picture!.