by Robert Bouffard, Editor
Anna Kendrick has had a consistent career in Hollywood for over a decade now, but aside from A Simple Favor, she hasn’t really gotten the chance to lead a serious drama. That changed, though, with her latest outing, Alice, Darling. Here, Kendrick shows that she potentially has a future doing these types of movies, if she so chooses. Because amidst a sometimes inconsistent tone and some fairly obvious and surface-level imagery, she is the main reason this film works.
Alice, Darling follows Alice (Kendrick), who is in a longterm relationship with an emotionally abusive boyfriend, Simon (Charlie Carrick). The relationship is causing a massive loss of self-confidence, on top of Alice pulling out her own hair during episodes of anxiety and panic. And the film is made better thanks to its steadfastness in depicting all of this. It’s emotionally brutal to watch these scenes, and Kendrick sells them well.
Director Mary Nighy also knows exactly what she wants to show on screen, as we mostly experience all of this through the prism of Alice’s episodes of extreme anxiety. Such a limited perspective places you right inside Alice’s mind, and it avoids getting gratuitous or going over the top with depictions of Simon’s gaslighting, insults, and controlling nature. We get flashes of all of this, but the focus is firmly on Alice’s reactions to it all, and the way she processes it.
Part of this relationship is Alice’s denial of its severity, both to her two best friends, Tess (Kaniehtiio Horn) and Sophie (Wunmi Mosaku), and to herself. But Tess and Sophie see what’s going on, of course, and they take Alice on a weeklong trip to Sophie’s parents’ lake house, where they can support each other, and perhaps broach the subject of Alice’s relationship.
Alice unsurprisingly doesn’t want anything to do with her friends broaching this subject, and Kendrick’s standoffishness and denial are a good use of her talents, stretching the persona she normally gives off, and which got her an Oscar nomination for Up in the Air. It adds to the film’s unsettling nature, as we’re used to seeing Kendrick a certain way. As I mentioned, she’s the core of everything that works.
At times, around Kendrick, the film can’t quite decide if it wants to be a harrowing drama or a melodrama. Especially towards the end, it doesn’t toe the line as smoothly as it would like to. And a subplot of a missing woman near the lake where the friends are staying is a somewhat messy parallel to Alice’s situation. Pairing that with the unfortunately obvious imagery of water washing away your troubles, and the extra lengths the film tries to go to don’t always work.
Even still, Alice, Darling provides the raw, unflinching look at emotional abuse that the topic deserves. A standout performance from Kendrick and the emotional anchors of Horn and Mosaku make the film worth a watch alone.
Score: 7/10
Alice, Darling is currently playing in limited theaters
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