Very well executed

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

I had not seen this film since 1965 when I was a college student but remember how electrifying it was to see a young, charismatic Julie Christie at the beginning of her peak years. She's given some great scenes to show off her multi-faceted personality and she throws herself into the amoral model, Diana, who sleeps her way to the top. I can't imagine any other actress who could have done this without being repulsed by her naked greed and amorality. Christie had an inner radiance that makes her likable throughout this ground-setting import from London. England had become a hot movie center during this era, giving us such phenomenal movies like "Georgy Girl," "women in love," "Isadora," and many more. We can see this movie as a time machine which captures the raw energy of that era as our sexuality began to expand into new realms from the staid values of the past. This is a terrific movie to watch from time to time and watch an early phenomenon begin her golden career.

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.

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.

Darling is one of those films from the 1960s that are so good, that requires multiple viewing.Like The Great Escape, Breakfast at Tiffanys,Lawrence of Arabia everything just comes together to create a perfect package. At the heart of this film is Julie Christie, who plays Diana Scott, a model in Swinging Sixties London.Diana is determined to find fame and fortune, and she will use sex to assist her if necessary.It is very difficult to make a lead character compelling even though she is selfish, immature and shallow. Watch the look on her face when he thinks TV journalist Robert Gold(Dirk Bogarde)owns a flash sports car.Quite early on, we are tipped off that this is a shallow woman. Robert falls in love with her, and they set up house together.Unfortunately for him,fidelity is not on the cards.Soon Diana spots greater opportunities with caddish Miles Brand played to perfection by Laurence Harvey.The film is daring by touching on previously taboo subjects like adultery, abortion and homosexuality.It also hints at the rise of the model as a celebrity.Director John Schlessinger is clearly satirising the rich,the famous and the vacuous.My favourite scene is the party scene in Paris,when Diana pretends to be Miles.Vicious but very funny!Julie Christie richly deserved her Oscar for Best Actress for this performance.