Kendrick stars as the titular Alice in the drama, which held its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday. Written by Alanna Francis and directed by Mary Nighy, Alice, Darling sees a woman receive an impromptu intervention from two friends when they realize she’s unknowingly trapped in an emotionally abusive relationship.
Kendrick has admitted that the relationship in the movie reflects one she was recently involved in herself, and she explained to Newsweek how she wasn’t alone in her experiences among the cast and crew.
“It’s funny, I feel like I’ve really opened myself up, mainly in the way that it all relates to this movie,” Kendrick told Newsweek. “The reason that we all decided to sign on to it, I was frankly astonished by [the fact] that almost to a person, everybody I talked to on that first day was bringing in their own experience.
“That was kind of the reason that every person from every department had decided to take on the job and was really pouring their heart and themselves into it,” Kendrick said.
The Pitch Perfect actress and Oscar-nominee made headlines recently when she admitted to People that the part of Alice echoed her own experiences. Kendrick said she was sent the part by her rep because she knew she was “coming out of a personal experience with emotional abuse and psychological abuse.”
Kendrick told Newsweek that the shared experiences helped “unify” everybody on set.
Directly Nighy, daughter of British actor Bill Nighy, is marking her feature-length directorial debut with Alice, Darling. She told Newsweek that a big part of her job on the set was listening.
“People came to me with the stories, I didn’t know, and it’s probably naive, but when I began the project I was really drawn to the very powerful script, I thought I could do something with it directorially that would be interesting. I didn’t know how many people would approach me as we were making it, with their own stories.”
Nighy continued: “And I’m not just talking about women, men approached me as well to talk about their experiences. It was across the board, casting, different crew members, heads of departments, even in post production. Quite privately they’d say to me ‘I really wanted to work on this film because I’ve read the script and it really resonated with me and my experience.’”
There is no cinematic or streaming release date yet for Alice, Darling, but when it does launch, Kendrick stated she wants to to make an impact on “an individual,” rather than furthering a conversation around relationships and abuse.
“I have a reaction to the word ‘conversation,’” Kendrick said with quotation marks around ‘conversation.’
“I totally understand why you’re asking it that way, but my hope is more around an individual personal curiosity. That a person might watch it and get curious about their own experience. I totally understand why a conversation would be part of it, but it’s trickier for me to think bout it in those terms, especially because the film is so small.
“It’s so intimate. It mostly takes place in one location with a couple of characters. There are obviously things that happen on a global stage like they’re furthering the conversation, maybe it will do that, but my brain keeps thinking more about the much trickier problem of an individual’s understanding of what’s happening to them, rather than discourse,” Kendrick said.
Nighy has been pleased with the personal reactions to her movie so far, especially with the surprising range. “People read the film quite differently, and different people take away different things from it.
“One thing that struck me is that sometimes people end up examining their own behavior. Some of the men I’ve spoken to question things they’ve said or done in relationships, which is quite interesting. I suppose when we watch a movie, where the abuse is really overt, and it’s very physical and violent. Then people say, ‘well, that’s not me.’
“But I think this film, because there is more grey area, I’ve noticed that people do question their own behavior. And a couple of guys who’ve watched it have said to their girlfriends, ‘do I? Do I do that?’
“I also hope that it just expands, moves the discourse forward a bit, and people can understand that abuse isn’t always physical,” Nighy said.
