I’m not surprised that a lot of the audience reviews for Alice, Darling are negative compared the praise from critics.m It’s been reviewed-bombed on imdb.com and Google by people calling it slow or uneventful. If you’re expecting Anna Kendrick in something like Sleeping With the Enemy or Enough, then, you’ll be mistaken. It’s a movie about a woman in an abusive relationship. But there’s not much physical violence.
And that’s what some people can’t understand. It’s about psychological and emotional abuse. Unfortunately for some people, they won’t understand this because this is what they think relationships are and should be like. Kendrick plays the titular Alice who’s in a relationship with Simon (Charlie Carrick), an artist who is very controlling and manipulative. He’s not physical. He doesn’t have to be. He’s found someone he can push around with his words or his mere presence.
When the movie opens, Alice is meeting with her two friends, Tess (Kaniehtiio Horn) and Sophie (Wunmi Mosaku), at a restaurant but her demeanor is off. The pings of notifications on her phone makes her timid as she flinches and repeatedly touches her hair,. Tess’ birthday is coming up and Sophie suggest they have a girls’ trip to her parents’ lake house. Alice is smitten but she knows Simon will never approve.
Later, she is shown prepping what she will say to him, telling him it’s a work trip. Even then, Simon is questioning why Alice has to go. Alice is still uneasy as they’re heading up to the countryside. Things get more tense when she sees a missing person flyer for a young girl from the area. This makes her feel more restless as Tess and Sophie try to chill and have some fun.
Eventually, Alice lets it slip when she loses some earrings when her and Tess take an impromptu swim in the lake that Simon is very controlling. She says she “can’t do another thing wrong.” Simon has made Alice believe she’s always bad at things, she tells Tess and Sophie who are shocked. And after some arguing back and forth, Alice attempts to leave the next morning but joins the locals on a search for the missing girl.
Tess and Sophie hide her phone and purse from Alice so she can unwind and they eventually all begin to relax and enjoy themselves and even helping the locals search for the missing girl again. That is until Simon shows up unexpectedly as he has discovered Alice has lied to him and ignoring him.
Here’s where the plot could’ve turned into a Lifetime movie thriller where Simon chases the three women around the lake area with a knife or a gun. But directort Mary Nighy still has a tense few scenes when not even the wrong word being said can lead to a fight but the wrong gesture. Simon doesn’t see what he’s doing as wrong. He makes a comment about the missing girl being dead which no one else appreciates. He thinks he’s Alice’s protector and by showing up at the lake house unannounced, he should be welcomed because he’s Alice’s boyfriend.
I haven’t seen Carrick in anything else even though he has dozens of credits in film and TV. He manages to come off as the typical douchebag who doesn’t think he’s a douchebag. I wouldn’t put it pass Simon to be having an affair with another women but not seeing the problem because Alice doesn’t provide for him his needs, even though they are shown having sex which she doesn’t like. One particular scene involves him surprising Alice while she’s in the shower and then more or less thinking it’s an invitation to have sex in the shower.
Another thing Nighy does in casting Horn and Mosaku as Alice’s friend as they are both bigger than Kendrick. Even though she’s in her mid-30s, her five-foot-two statue gives off more of a meek juvenile character, the same way Mia Farrow mostly looked waifish and childlike in Rosemary’s Baby. Carrick is about foot taller than her and her friends have an opposing advantage over her.
But the ending, which I’m not going to reveal, is more realistic than the stereotypical firing a gun to end everything. This is about a woman discovering that she has been trapped and trying to break free. Even though she never publicly named him, Kendrick herself said she was in an emotionally abusive relationship with someone for six years. From 2014 to 2020 she was in a relationship with Ben Richards, a cinematographer. It’s very easy to put two and two together.
Kendrick’s performance is very different than what we’re use to in these types of movies. And the fact that many people couldn’t see that she was being abused means they’re either abusers themselves or they’re in the same environment or have been and didn’t know it. People claiming it was wrong for Alice to lie to Simon and ignore his text messages don’t realize that Simon is too controlling. I worked with a woman who had to tell her husband when she was leaving work. She only lived a mile from the office. This was used as a joke in White Chicks because the roles were reversed and it was Marlon Wayans who was being interrogated by his wife for taking too long to come home.
But abuse is abuse. You shouldn’t have to “check in” with a partner on a regular basis. Simon is abusive and when confronted, he reacts just the way you would expect. He thinks it’s not his fault. And now, everyone sees his true colors. He’s off to find fresh prey. I’m sure the filmmakers expected the negative feedback from the general public. A lot of people don’t like to see movies where they’re being portrayed as the bad person.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 