Movies
[SXSW Review] Pollyanna McIntosh’s ‘Darlin’ is an Underwhelming Follow-Up to ‘The Woman’
In 2011, Lucky McKee unleashed The Woman on the world. That film was a sequel to the 2009 film Offspring and now, eight years later, the saga of The Woman continues (concludes?) with Darlin’. The Woman was a brutal, uncomfortable piece of cinema that offered a unique look at gender dynamics and civilization. Darlin’, though well-directed by franchise star Pollyanna McIntosh, suffers from an underdeveloped script with odd tonal inconsistencies and some heavy-handed messaging that makes this sequel somewhat of a disappointment. The passion is there, but something got lost in the execution.
Found at a Catholic hospital filthy and ferocious, feral teenager Darlin’ (Lauryn Canny) is whisked off to a care home run by The Bishop (Bryan Batt, Scream: The Series) and his obedient nuns (one of whom is played by The Descent‘s Nora-Jane Noone) where she is to be tamed into a “good girl.” However, Darlin’ holds a secret darker than the “sins” she is threatened with, and she is not traveling alone. The Woman (Pollyanna McIntosh, The Woman) who raised her is ever present and is determined to come for her no matter who tries to step in her way.
If you’ve never seen The Woman, never fear. Darlin’ operates as a standalone film, though you’ll undoubtedly get more of a payoff if you’ve seen The Woman and/or Offspring. Darlin’ opts to shift the focus from The Woman to its titular character (whom you may remember rode off into the sunset with The Woman at the end of the previous film), but still doesn’t seem fully compelled to keep her in the limelight. Screen time is split fairly evenly between Darlin’s adventures in Christianland and The Woman’s journey to find her. This wouldn’t be a problem if it didn’t feel like the two were in wildly different films, but it does. The Woman is in some kind of bizarre black comedy slasher film whereas Darlin’ is in a film that plays somewhat like a remake of The Woman with the religious aspects amped up to 11. It is this film that takes itself seriously, which isn’t surprising when it comes to the subject matter (i.e., sexual assault), but it just doesn’t mesh well with the kooky comedy that The Woman is in.
In attempting to tackle so many issues with such a large variety of tones, Darlin’ loses its focus. It also rushes through plot points at a rapid pace, rarely giving any of them time to resonate. This is especially true in Darlin’s taming process. The timeline is established via a character’s pregnancy so you know it’s taking place over the course of nine months, but Darlin’ is feral in one scene and then speaking full sentences in the next. It’s all rather abrupt and narratively unsatisfying.
Where Darlin’ does excel is in McIntosh’s direction. For a debut feature, she has a remarkably confident hand. Her passion for this world and (some of) its characters shine through every frame. It’s also refreshing to see a woman behind the camera in a film that is so female-centric. McIntosh proves equally adept at filming the softer moments just as well as she does the violent ones. It is a solid directorial debut and I’m looking forward to what she has in store for us next.
As mentioned above, The Woman is a brutal film, and Darlin’ doesn’t skimp on the gore, either. Cannibalism plays a fairly large role in the proceedings, but there are plenty of stabbings to go around as well. It’s all appropriately icky, but it does somewhat lack the in-your-face grotesquerie that The Woman possessed. In that film, you felt the violence. In Darlin’, the violence doesn’t feel quite as visceral, which is saying something for a film that features a sequence in which The Woman cuts the stomach off of a fresh corpse before eating it.
Performances run the gamut from nuanced and sincere to flat-out caricatures. Canny makes a strong impression as Darlin’, making the transition from feral to civilized seem natural even when the editing betrays her. Similarly, McIntosh feels right at home as The Woman surprising no one who has seen her perfectly embody this role before. Noone and Cooper Andrews (as a nurse who befriends Darlin’) also do well in their smaller roles. When it comes to the Bishop, however, all nuance is lost. He might as well be twirling a Snidely Whiplash mustache, both because of the way he is written and because that’s how big Batt plays him. It’s certainly a choice. Similarly, there is a convent of homeless women that take The Woman in that feel like they’re in an entirely different film. Just when you think they are meant to serve some kind of narrative importance they abruptly leave the picture, making you wonder why they were even introduced in the first place.
Darlin’ is clearly a passion project for McIntosh, and that passion is evident on screen. It’s just not enough to make Darlin’ wholly successful. If you are a fan of The Woman and want to see the story continued, then definitely give it a watch. Otherwise, there’s just not much here to recommend.
Darlin’ had its world premiere at the SXSW film festival on March 9, 2019, and is being repped by MPI and Dark Sky Films.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Kraus took the literary world by storm back in 2023 with the release of his hit novel Whalefall. A terrifying yet intimate survival thriller with mythological undertones, the book was almost immediately bombarded with offers from movie studios wanting to adapt its claustrophobic imagery to the big screen.
Fast forward to June of 2026, and we finally got our first glimpse at Brian Duffield’s long-awaited adaptation of Whalefall, starring Austin Abrams as our unfortunate lead who gets swallowed alive by a sperm whale. While this two-and-a-half-minute teaser only covers the beginning of the story, it’s already been making waves online (and in-person at select 4DX promotional screenings) as one of the most stressful cinematic experiences of the year.
In fact, my own wife had to cover her eyes and exclaim, “You’re definitely not dragging me to watch this one” when we saw the whale’s jaws begin to close in on Abrams, with this incident alone already leaving me convinced that this will likely be one of the biggest genre hits of the year. With that in mind, I’d like to invite you to take a closer look at the teaser in order to break down interesting details and get a better idea of what’s in store for genre fans when the movie finally comes out this October.
Of course, as usual, don’t forget to comment below if you noticed something we didn’t!
Now, without further ado, here are five things we learned from the Whalefall trailer!
5. Austin Abrams Performed Many of His Own Stunts
Much like in his previous film, No One Will Save You, Duffield insisted that this visceral experience should be grounded by our main character’s believable reactions, regardless of the plot’s effects-heavy setup. That’s why the camera always makes sure to linger on Abrams through his diving mask, so we know that it’s really him going through this ordeal alongside the audience.
While plenty of CGI was used in order to bring this larger-than-life story to the big screen without killing our leading man, Abrams apparently insisted on performing many of his underwater stunts himself (several of which are visible in the trailer) – much to the chagrin of a worried Duffield and the flick’s stunt coordinator, Shauna Duggins.
4. The Film Seamlessly Transitions Between the California Coast and Underwater Sets
Duffield obviously wasn’t about to drag his crew out to the middle of the ocean and shoot inside a real sperm whale, but it’s reassuring to see the filmmaker blend on-location footage with the underwater tank segments and the literal belly of the whale set.
There may be plenty of CGI stitching these elements together, but the trailer shows us that only the truly impossible shots are completely digital, meaning that the filmmakers didn’t take the easy way out when it came to adapting this unique story.
3. The Whale is Only Part of the Story
Book adaptations tend to leave out inner monologues and the occasional flashback in order to streamline the narrative (which is one reason why it’s so difficult to translate Stephen King novels to the big screen), but a claustrophobic parable like Kraus’ Whalefall would get a bit dull after a while if the whole thing was entirely set within the creature’s stomach.
That’s why it’s such a relief that the trailer hints at how Duffield will also be adapting many of the book’s introspective moments chronicling our protagonist’s harsh upbringing under his troubled father. Not only do these inclusions give the audience some much-appreciated breathing room, but they also give Josh Brolin a chance to shine as a truly complicated character.
2. The Movie is Keeping the Book’s Scientific Accuracy…
While Kraus’ novel was inspired by a viral video of kayakers nearly being swallowed by a humpback whale, the writer ended up consulting with marine biologists about exactly what kind of situation might lead to a whale actually eating a human being alive.
The answer was surprisingly specific, as cetaceans are almost universally known to be friendly towards humans. However, even a gentle giant can make mistakes, and as we see in the trailer, Abrams’ unpleasant fate is more of an accident than anything else – with the massive sperm whale only trapping the poor diver in the first (and thankfully acid-free) chamber of its stomach due to a mix-up involving a giant squid.
Fortunately for the film’s special effects artists, they can now reference the first-ever footage of a real-life sperm whale chowing down on one such squid, as this freaky recording was released late last year.
1. …With a Catch!
Duffield may be doing his best to recreate the grounded (or is it submerged?) thrills of Kraus’ novel, but there are limits to what can be depicted onscreen while still guaranteeing an entertaining movie. That’s why it’s no surprise that Whalefall will take advantage of certain cinematic parlor tricks as the director tests the limits of both physics and biology so we can actually watch his movie.
For starters, the innards of the whale itself have been greatly exaggerated so there’s enough space to make out the action, and in the spirit of movies like Neil Marshall’s The Descent, there also seems to be plenty of non-diegetic lighting meant to show us what’s going on even if Abram’s character wouldn’t necessarily be able to see anything.
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