Alice, Darling

Alice, Darling

A young woman trapped in an abusive relationship becomes an unwitting participant in an intervention staged by her two closest friends.

  • Released: 2022-12-30
  • Runtime: 89 minutes
  • Genre: Drama, Thrillers
  • Stars:
  • Director:
 Comments
  • mrglenngrant - 25 May 2024
    Very average.
    This could have been a powerful story about a woman reclaiming herself from an abusive partner .... but the way the story is told makes the movie a bit weak, in my humble opinion.

    I didn't like the way that the abuse she suffered was only kind of hinted at. We never really got to see the real reasons behind the way she felt .... with only flashes and snippets of psychological abuse from Simon.

    With that, we're left to fill in a lot of the blank spaces .... which I realise some people prefer but I'm more in the camp that actually seeing it would have been more effective and powerful.

    I - as a man - am also guilty of not understanding why she would put up with his crap anyway - which also lessens the impact of the film and the story. To my simplistic little brain the solution is easy. Just leave him. Why put up with this when it clearly has such a detrimental effect on you?

    I also didn't understand what the reasoning behind the missing girl sub-plot that seemed like it was going to be really important at some point. Like it was going to turn out that Simon was the abductor/killer (which would have been far too obvious but you get my point).

    49/100.
  • pflugs-48071 - 8 January 2024
    Clearly the other reviewers know nothing about narcissistic abuse
    I am shocked by the 5.5 rating of this film. Totally shocked.

    Other reviewers commenting that Alice's character was "boring" clearly know nothing about what being in a narcissistically abusive relationship does to a person. You become a shell. The narcissist steals all of your personality with their abuse.

    I thought this was a great portrayal of a situation that is more common than most people think. Anna Kendrick was excellent. The actors who played her friends did a fantastic job as well, realizing over the vacation exactly what kind of relationship she is in as she slowly starts to admit things to them.

    I do wish the film had been longer, as I felt Alice's turnaround was a little too quick. It takes an average of seven attempts for a person to leave an abusive relationship. But I loved the climax scene. I was so proud of all three of the girls and the way they handled it. And the boyfriend reacted exactly as I knew he would, throwing the suitcase out of the car.

    I didn't really understand the sub-plot of the missing girl, but I'm guessing it's to show the contrast of violence. Her boyfriend never physically abused her, but abuse is abuse.

    To the reviewers on here who said we never see him doing anything "that bad"...please. Telling your partner how to eat is not okay. There were many clues throughout the film that she has an eating disorder. Many of the things he said to her in the flashback scenes were not okay. The fact that she would get up early to do her hair, put on eyeliner, and scrub her body down...those are all things brought on by his mental abuse. Her freaking out when she loses the earring he bought her and saying "I can't do anything else wrong". Plus her rushing to put on eyeliner when he got there and his comments about how she "looks different". Him blaming his work being affected by her lying to him and saying she was hanging out with her friends at his expense. The constant texting and checking in. Showing up to her girls trip? Hello! That's nuts!

    If I could review this more times to get the score up, I would. I'm so glad I didn't pay attention to the bad reviews.