Darlin’ is a 2019 horror film about a feral teenager who is taken to a special home in hopes of being tamed.
I never did see Lucky Mckee‘s The Woman, an Australian film about a lawyer’s attempts to civilize the last remaining member of a violent clan of savages, though it appears not to be necessary in following along with writer and director Pollyanna McIntosh‘s sequel Darlin’ eight years after. The premise is similar in this follow-up and it’s a good one, if not entirely new – Tarzan comes to mind but more so Jodie Foster‘s Nell – but this curiously offbeat feature just doesn’t have the weight behind its troubling characters to make this as impactful as it should be, despite good performances and a few impressive moments of chaos.
At a local hospital, a young woman (Lauryn Canny) walks into the emergency room. She’s completely naked and filthy with frazzled red hair down to her knees. A male nurse (Cooper Andrews) realizes she’s feral and attempts to help, doctors soon pouncing, pumping her full of drugs. Cleaned up, she’s soon taken to a home for young girls, led by The Bishop (Bryan Batt). There, his nuns, including Sister Jennifer (Nora-Jane Noone), a former junkie manipulated into service, take to try and tame the girl, who growls and grunts, the corrupt Bishop with a plan to use her as a way to keep his home running. Meanwhile, The Woman (McIntosh), who captured Darlin’ as a child years before wants her back, a secret between them leading to a ghastly run of horror.
It all sort of seems to take place in a kind of alternate reality where things aren’t exactly ‘normal’ even as it tries to hold onto some gritty authenticity. This means mixing two stories where Darlin’ is thrust into a world she is entirely unfamiliar with, civilization way off the menu for her having grown up in the wilds, feeding on well, people. This gives the film opportunities to have some fun with bits of humor as she acclimates to life in a home with rebellious girls under the guidance of nuns just barely keeping things under control. While this is going on, The Woman goes on a rampage, spilling guts (literally) wherever she can in hunting down Darlin’.
This is a weird movie, but that’s probably the point. McIntosh doesn’t have a lot of screen time – she reprises her role from the first film – and for her directorial debut, experiments with all kinds of energetic flourishes in tackling commentary on religion, society, girls, and more. She puts together some nice imagery in a few select moments that reveal an obvious talent for storytelling, a number of cutaways and small decorative shots truly giving this a nice look. However, she’s often all over the place, sometimes mistaking slash-cuts and hyper violence for style when all they tend to do is distract. It’s never as gory as it wants to be and never as suspenseful as it should be, even as it goes to great lengths to be both.
Still, Darlin’ is a pleasingly dark film, the metamorphosis of the young woman not without its hooks. Canny is very good in a difficult, physical part. She’s greatly expressive and frightful before she is then warm and lovely, the transformation well executed as it leads her down a path most will see coming. That’s not to say this isn’t a challenge because is it that above all. But does it all work? Not all the time, but it’s undeniably strange and that counts for a lot.