Darlin’ (2019)

Movie: Darlin’ (2019), directed by Pollyanna McIntosh

Watched on: Amazon Prime

Ran: 10.34 miles, 8’42”/mile, 01:30:04 (long run)

 

Okay, so I kinda screwed up on this one. I was browsing around through various services looking for something that might serve as an antidote of sorts to having done back-to-back “worst movies of all time” that also both just so happened to wallow in degrees of misogyny ranging from “definitely icky” (the death-by-worm-rape scene in Galaxy of Terror) to “flat-out holocaust” (literally dang near everything in Bloodsucking Freaks). When I happened upon another unknown-to-me title in Amazon Prime’s horror section that was written by, directed by, and starring a woman, I figured that might be just the ticket—after all, that’s how I found Braid, which was just the sort of thing I needed. And that’s how I came to watch Darlin’ during a ten-mile run.

 

I need to clarify: when I say I screwed up, I don’t mean that I didn’t like Darlin’, because I did. A lot. However, I didn’t realize until after the fact that Darlin’ is a direct sequel to Lucky McKee’s The Woman, which, to my great shame, I have not yet seen. And apparently The Woman is itself a sequel to Offspring, which I have also not yet seen. So I have some catching up to do. But maybe that’s a blessing in disguise? Because I can honestly report that Darlin’ worked just fine for me as a standalone film. Sure, it was confusing at points that I’m sure would have been a lot clearer had I seen its predecessor, but in some sense I wonder if not having every i dotted and t crossed might even have enriched the experience.

 

The broad strokes: when a young feral woman emerges from the woods and is struck by an ambulance, she is admitted to a Catholic hospital, where she is viewed by the bishop as the ultimate PR vehicle—if this snarling, ferocious heathen can be rehabilitated as a God-fearing model citizen at his affiliated group home for girls, then perhaps the church won’t shut down the home as they have been threatening to do. So the girl—she was wearing a bracelet that spells out DARLIN—is relocated to St. Philomena’s, where she begins her re-education/indoctrination into the Catholic faith (once the bishop has all the staged “before” footage of Darlin’ all dirtied up and snarling, that is). But Darlin’ has a secret, and so does the bishop—well, except this is a Catholic institution, so maybe his is more of a “secret”—and meanwhile, another feral woman has picked up Darlin’s scent and is leaving a trail of partially eaten corpses in her wake. 

 

If you noticed that summary doesn’t make Darlin’ sound much like a horror film until you get to the phrase “partially eaten corpses,” well, I noticed that, too. Presumably Amazon classified the movie as horror precisely because of said partially eaten corpses and the like, but honestly you could take all the murder and cannibalism out of this movie and tell the same story. The real horrors on Darlin’s plate are the physical, emotional, and intellectual abuses of the Church, as well as the usual body horror inseparable from the subject of pregnancy. The stabbin’s and people-eatin’s are just a garnish.

 

From what I gather, a lot of fans of The Woman were therefore disappointed in Darlin’ because apparently they’re very different movies? I won’t be able to weigh in until I can watch The Woman myself, but I could certainly see that; Darlin’ feels every inch a woman-written and -directed film, and it deals with women’s horrors from a woman’s perspective. So I could see it being a different take on the characters and themes from Lucky McKee’s outing. Personally, that sounds awesome to me, and I look forward to seeing The Woman so I can compare for myself.

 

I really admired the performances in this movie. Lauryn Canny, especially, does a stunning job as Darlin’, which is particularly impressive because she’s nonverbal for much of the film. Bryan Batt does a fine turn as the bishop with a face you really want to punch. Cooper Andrews is a big ol’ teddy bear as the nurse who first treats Darlin’ and keeps checking in with her.

 

One last note before I sign off: at first I had some trouble willingly suspending disbelief at the notion of a feral child learning to speak after just a few months of socialization and tutoring. However, because I hadn’t seen The Woman, I didn’t know then what I (sort of) know now from watching the trailer: that Darlin’ was a normally-speaking, normally-socialized child before regressing in the woods. I’m no expert… but my (unfortunately horror-allergic) speech pathologist girlfriend is! So I asked her whether acquiring speech as a child, losing it to years of disuse, and then relearning it is something that could happen under circumstances and timeframes like those in Darlin’, and she thinks it’s possible, though unlikely. But hey, “possible” is all I need! I’m gonna suspend that disbelief SO HARD, you guys!