Julie Christie turns in an astonishing, Oscar-winning performance in this tale about wanting it all - and getting exactly what you wish for. Directed by John Schlesinger from an Oscar-winning screenplay by Frederic Raphael.
Ambitious model Diana Scott (Christie) uses her relationships to turn a low-rent career into a high-gear smorgasbord of jet-setting, love-making and the pursuit of hedonistic happiness. But as she moves from one fiery tryst with a TV writer (Dirk Bogarde) to another with a suave playboy (Laurence Harvey) and yet another with a crown prince, she finds that happiness is the one thing that may elude her forever.
“A feminist picaresque, as relevant as BARBIE or PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN, and the moral emptiness that accompanies her vertiginous rise.”
– The Times
“John Schlesinger’s winsome adventure from 1965 still has verve and ambition, a romantic satire of swinging London now on rerelease for its 60th anniversary. The wry, Oscar®-winning screenplay from Frederic Raphael imports and anglicises the influence of Godard, Resnais, Varda, and the French New Wave…” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“A tragicomedy about how moral quality can fail any one of us in the contemporary world—not by much but just by enough. In the end, this is Schlessinger’s picture—one of those really fine works of bravura direction which for the most part resists the temptation to underline or otherwise call attention to its own skill. Schlesinger’s talent, like Julie Christie's, is for wonderfully elaborate embroidery, deepening, enriching, and further illuminating the basic thread of his work. It is complex but never confusing, for his touch is near perfect.”
– Richard Schickel, TIME
Screening as part of our John Schlesinger Centenary celebration.
