Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Fish_chips The film was voted by the Swedish Film Critics Association as 'Best Swedish Film of 2007', and with good reason. The film becomes a portrayal of Eva, and the emotional journey that she goes on. She is self-centered, egotistical and emotionally empty. But during a time of hardship she encounters Bernhard, and she gains a chance to escape from her carapace by actually considering someone else. But she is unable to make the complete journey and reverts to her empty ways. Meanwhile Bernhard should regard himself as hard-done-by, but he looks for the positives (in employment and the promised housing). The ending was great: Bernhard rides the bus but is smiling and waving, while Eva is in the luxury car but has reverted back into her blankness. Not everybody who looks attractive is really worthy! Can't imagine that Hollywood could ever make this movie as it shows a most subtle progression - but the progression is in reverse: as her finances go down, her emotional outlook goes up, and then vice-versa!; Hollywood would likely sickenly sweeten the ending by having Eva leave her boyfriend's SUV and join Bernhard on the bus!

ptb-8 Australia is having a love affair with Swedish cinema and as a person (not Asa Persson) from Australia I found this poignant whimsical satire of the bitch and un-famous quite a delicious social comment prevalent among shallow shop-girl-preppy exec set. This film is about friendship and the emptiness among the 'Desperate Shopgirls' of Stockholm and their equally mean and selfish male counterparts. I really liked the bouncy music score that allowed the viewer to know this is a wry and heartfelt comedy of modern bad manners and social errors. However it also is about just how truly unfair life is for any generation without ramming it home. It is subtle, quiet and very deliberately presented in gorgeous widescreen photography that shows Stocholm as the breathtaking but cold city it really is. I will not give away any plot but if you and your partner are willing to engage your brain with a sophisticated journey of self discovery from unlikely generational mix, then you will have much to discuss. The so called sophisticated bar scene friendships satirised among this pack of unpleasant shallow 30 somethings is genuinely enjoyable. DARLING is quietly excellent.

richard_sleboe Lift them up high, lest we miss it when they fall. The plot is pure Aristoteles, sympathy and terror brought to you in a modern-looking, yet inherently classic tale so simple and loaded it almost qualifies as a parable. "Darling" tells the story of rich girl going down. Essentially, it's Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" re-arranged as a movie by acclaimed writer-director Johan Kling. Trying to settle in, Eva (Michelle Meadows) becomes unlikely allies with Bernard (Michael Segerström), a retired divorcée. The lonely girl kindles new hope in the old man, but it doesn't last. Just as Eva starts building a modest life of her own, she is yanked back by another passing stranger: back downtown from the suburbs, back into the jet-set from the working class, out of the bus and into a car. Bernard stays behind as Eva slides out of view in her new boyfriend's shiny SUV. Well-scripted, superbly acted and attractively photographed in a syncopated mix of wide-angle and extreme close-up shots. Includes priceless vintage footage of Jerry Williams dancing to his "Number One". Oh, and Michelle Meadows is really, really cute for a blonde. Pity Johan Kling explicitly told her not to smile on screen. Trust me, hers is a million dollar smile.

stensson This Swedish movie has had some nice press here. Maybe because of the long time passed, since such a movie was done.It's about the posh nouveau riche and their empty lives. But it's too pedagogic. Everything starts from scratch, to make the audience understand that the poshs really do have these empty lives, on the contrary to the other main character, the 60-year-old unemployed. He's almost a Jesus figure, getting humiliated in different ways, both by his family and his young employers. But his goodness remains.You could maybe have swalloved that, but the problem with the poshs is that they somehow are like extras with lines. No real complication here. Just a saga there the end is obvious. Or maybe not. The bus scene in the end suggests something else, but I'm not sure I want to see a "Darling 2".