When Mary Nighy was a young actor, an unhealthy number of scripts landed in her inbox featuring a character that went something like: “18-year-old-girl, naked, dead.” “Sexual abuse or violence is often just used as a plot device. It’s a catalyst for drama,” she says. “It doesn’t really tell you much about the experience of being abused. Or how you emerge from it.”
Now, with her first feature film as a director, she has made a film that does exactly that: exploring what it might feel like to be trapped inside a coercive, controlling and psychologically abusive relationship. Alice, Darling is the story of an accidental intervention, after three female friends drive from Toronto to a cottage to celebrate a 30th birthday. One of the trio, Alice (Anna Kendrick) is in a relationship with Simon, a successful artist. He seems nice enough, but something about him feels off.
