Alice, Darling review: Anna Kendrick is peerless in gripping abuse drama
★★★★☆
Alice, Darling is a subtly gripping and deftly effective portrait of coercive control in an abusive relationship, and one of the most staggeringly realistic. It also has a bravely simplistic premise which only makes its case stronger.
It’s a cause Pitch Perfect’s Anna Kendrick is clearly passionate about: she’s producing and playing the lead role in this astonishingly good drama. Kendrick plays Alice, a woman of about 30 who’s narrowly avoiding a breakdown due to her abusive British boyfriend Simon, who’s well realised by Charlie Carrick.
Writers Alanna Francis and Mark Van de Ven have created the ultimate environment for Alice to falter
She goes on a girls’ holiday to celebrate one of her old friends’ 30th birthdays, but spends most of it agonising and worrying about what he’ll think. Kendrick is peerless in the way she embodies trauma, constantly tearing at Alice’s hair as a stress coping mechanism in a way that feels so real she could be sitting beside you. Director Mary Nighy lingers uncomfortably so we see the self-harm in real time.
Writers Alanna Francis and Mark Van de Ven have created the ultimate environment for Alice to falter, as the repercussions of the abuse mean she distances herself from those that love her the most. Her two best friends are so caring that they do not say anything, noticing instead that Alice must realise herself the gravity of the situation.
Wunmi Mosaku and Kaniehtiio Horn are perfectly in opposition as So phie and Tess respectively. Both feel like real lifelong best friends, with all their boundless love despite their differences. Mosaku is tonally perfect as the reassuring good cop, Horn the slightly brash one that doesn’t mince her words, offering tough love.
Kendrick often has to just stand and look stressed while she almost sabotages the closeness from those who love her most, and she does a staggeringly good job of it. Simon feels real too, the silent egomaniac oppressor who will press and press for her love even though she is better off without him. Set at a beautiful lakeside holiday home, the message is that the most gruesome horrors can happen in plain sight.
Alice, Darling is in cinemas now
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