Anna Kendrick has a new film out called Alice, Darling. It looks like it’s a great film but also like it will be incredibly difficult to watch. Anna plays Alice, who is in a psychologically abusive relationship with Simon. Her friends suspect/know something is wrong, but they can’t get through to Alice. Watching the trailer made my stomach turn. If the trailer is triggering, I can only imagine what the film is like. You can see the trailer here. Unfortunately, the reason Anna is so convincing in her role as Alice is because she was drawing on personal experience. Anna received the script soon after getting out of an emotionally abusive relationship. The movie was so similar to what she had gone through, that Anna said if it wasn’t being filmed several months from when she read it, she risked being retraumatized. But she had the space and supportive cast and director, which kept her safe. So they were able to tell the story in a way that may help others.
Anna Kendrick’s latest film, “Alice, Darling,” didn’t need an emotional abuse consultant. Its emotional abuse consultant was Anna Kendrick.
Lead actor and executive producer Kendrick had recently come out of an emotionally abusive relationship of her own when she was sent the screenplay, written by Alanna Francis, which details the experience of a woman struggling, while on vacation with two close friends, to come to terms with the fact that she’s been psychologically abused by her boyfriend.
“I really related to Alice’s obsessive mind,” Kendrick told The Times. The script had a line in which Alice wishes she could purify her thoughts, and although Kendrick didn’t have that same thought, she remembers writing in her journal, “I’m just going to try a little harder. If I could just get it right, if I could make it perfect, if I could just say it in the perfect way, I’ll be OK.”
“It’s this totally irrational hope that if I’m just a little bit better, I’ll be safe. It’s like having a pair of pliers on your heart,” she said.
“Alice, Darling,” opening in Los Angeles Friday, was filmed in June and July of 2021, only six months after Kendrick received the script. But with the help of her therapist, a protective cast and crew, and director Mary Nighy’s offer to provide help if things got too intense, Kendrick felt safe. She explained that this was crucial, because when part of your original trauma is being invalidated, you want to surround yourself with people who understand.
She said she told Nighy that she’d rather have 1 in 10 people watch the movie and think, “Simon was a jerk, but don’t be so dramatic,” rather than have a moment where he shoves Alice into a wall so everybody gets on the same page that he’s an abusive bad guy. “That was a big part of my problem. ‘Well he never hit me and I’m not really afraid that he’s going to hit me. How do I discern between normal conflict and abuse? Why is my body in so much fear all of the time? Why do I wake up feeling like he’s in bed next to me and wondering, ‘OK, do I have 30 seconds before I start performing or … ?’”
Kendrick discussed how living in an abusive relationship creates so much self-doubt that people question their own reality. She describes it as, “He’s so convinced that I am a monster that I can’t see how I am not.”
During the final stages of editing, Kendrick urged Nighy to “pull back” even further, recounting an early conversation with co-star Wunmi Mosaku about why they liked Francis’ script. “I said that I love that it really relied on Alice’s experience rather than cataloging evidence of the behavior from Simon,” Kendrick recalled. “Wunmi said, ‘But Anna, you’re the evidence.’”
At this point in our phone interview, Kendrick cuts herself off and starts apologizing. It takes a beat to realize she’s crying.
“I was begging Mary, ‘Can Alice be the evidence?’” Kendrick said. “Because not only do I want us to not make a movie that’s already been made, but personally, I need to trust that I’m the evidence. Part of it was like, if you can’t trust Alice, then I can’t trust myself. So it was really, really important that the movie relied so heavily on just staying with Alice.”
She also resisted any implication that physical abuse was only a matter of time: “You don’t have to believe that it might get physical for you to feel like you’re allowed to leave, that you deserve to be treated better, deserve to feel safe.”
“I need to trust that I’m the evidence… if you can’t trust Alice, then I can’t trust myself,” reading that caught in my throat. Anna detailed the ways that director Mary Nighy and her castmates supported her, and how her therapist helped her get through the filming but my gawd, this must have been so difficult. Kaniehtiio Horn, who plays one of the two friends trying to rescue Alice, admitted she has also been in many emotional and other abusive relationships. And reading above how Wunmi Mosaku understood Anna’s experience, it sounds like it was a very safe place for Anna to tell this story.
I think it’s important too, because as the excerpt emphasizes, they made a concerted effort for there not to be any evidence of physical abuse. They took out a scene where Alice removes her shirt and has bruises on her. Mary and Anna both said they realized there will be those who don’t “see” the abuse because we’ve been conditioned to accept physical abuse as wrong but we aren’t taught the other kinds of abuse. So they really wanted to show what non-physical abuse can look like, which goes back to Anna asking for Alice to be the evidence instead of having her thrown into a wall. Mary said a clinical psychologist came up to her at the Toronto Film Festival and said she believes they may save lives with the film as a result. I feel horrible for Anna knowing this film cut so close to the bone. But I admire the fact that she was willing to put it up on screen to help someone who hasn’t gotten out of a bad relationship yet.
Photo credit: Cover Images and Instagram
I’ve never been in an abusive romantic relationship. But I was physically abused growing up. You make excuses even as a kid and it takes a toll on you. Good for Anna that she got away from that relationship. Recovery is almost a lifetime.
I’m sorry. Hope you know you didn’t deserve it.
Yeah, the past couple years its been 2/3 royal articles
The emotional abuse. When someone disparages and gaslights you and you become a shell of yourself because you’ve begun to believe the lies. Why have, I’m pretty sure, all the women I know been in this position?
And the hell of not being believed when you’re fighting for your life.
Doing what you need to in the aftermath to experience well being and healing can result in isolation. It’s epically unfair, after the abuser(s) exploited and manipulated your desires for connection and community.
I don’t think I can watch something like this but I am glad it’s been made.
I’ve been in an psychologically abusive relationship. the gaslighting and manipulation means you never know which way is up. She’s spot on about Alice being the evidence. Bravo AK
In other words, stay away from Ben Richardson (and all the others just like him).
My father was verbally abusive. My “forvever” relationship crumbled the instant I realized that the man I loved and thought that I would spend my life with was just like my father. The realization came out of the blue even though he had slowly started becoming verbally abusive years before. The moment that I realized this I was SO shocked. I never saw it coming, even though all the evidence was there and even his friends were starting to comment about the abusive way he treated me.
Wasn’t her most recent relationship with Bill Hader? Is he an abuser/gaslighter?!
Movie sounds intense so I may have to skip but generally like Anna’s project choices.
I think it was the relationship before Hader.
She claims to have been newly OUT of the abusive relationship when she got the script, which appears to be around late 2020, as filming began mid 2021.
She and Hader were together while filming. They announced they split in June 2022 after almost two years together. So we can assume they got together after June 2020.
She was with Ben Richardson from about 2014 to 2020.
He seems to be the one you need to watch out for.
My mother was a basically decent person who largely meant well, but IMO had untreated anxiety and depression, and almost certainly resented giving up her profession to be a SAHM, as women of her generation were expected to do. She was verbally abusive, angry, moody. I find myself rushing to add, “But not all the time!” She *could* be very kind. She could also be very mean. Her way of parenting had the cumulative effect of building me up with one hand while tearing me down with the other. The overall message I got from her was “Of course I love you, even though you don’t deserve it.” Do I believe she meant that message? No. But she took zero accountability for her unchecked anger and verbal abuse. And no, she never hit me. Good to see emotional abuse acknowledged as being “bad enough” on it’s own. Because it is. By the way, I’ve never had an abusive partner, because I’ve never had a partner at all. How much of that is asexuality vs learned mistrust, I can’t say.
… Let’s all remember to be kind. 🤗
wow this describes me and my mom to a tee but written much more succinctly than I would have. hugs to you!
This hit really close to home. Thank you for having the courage to leave this message – I think it has helped me to identify some things in my own childhood and how they’ve impacted me as an adult.
My ex-husband was both emotionally and physically abusive. I was frightened all the time, trying so hard to “be better” so that he wouldn’t hurt me verbally or physically. I also created more stress for myself by trying to convince my family and the world what a great relationship I had. He did me a huge favor when he left me, declaring that I was unattractive, boring, and that our two year old was driving him crazy. Thank God. It forced me to admit what a horrible relationship it was, and to seek help. The love of my family and friends, and the support of a wonderful counselor put me back together. When I began a relationship with the wonderful man I’m married to, my ex came back, begging me to return to him. I have always been convinced that it was just so he could dump me again, but I had gotten smart. No one should live in fear.
“You don’t have to believe that it might get physical for you to feel like you’re allowed to leave, that you deserve to be treated better, deserve to feel safe.”
💯
This movie will be hard for me to watch but I will to support such an important message that doesn’t get talked about enough.
My ex husband was emotionally abusive and only since leaving the relationship did I realise how bad it was. I gaslit myself into thinking it was all me because surely I must be the problem. I often hoped he would hit me so then I could have a reason for feeling so bad. No one knew and no still knows how bad it was. I look back now and just feel tremendous sadness. I never would have allowed that behaviour for my friends. I am going to watch this movie and most likely cry throughout the entire thing.
I was gaslit for 7 years by an emotionally and verbally abusive asshole. This was before gaslighting was a well-known thing, so I spent most of my 20s constantly apologizing, appeasing, and anxiously tip-toeing around him, wallowing in the moments he was kind or happy with me while always wondering when he’d get upset again and doing everything I could do avoid an eruption. One day, I was in the bathroom at work and saw a poster that featured red flag relationship behaviors. I answered yes to 6 of the 8. It took me another 4 years to get out, but I’m so grateful that I did.
I’m not an Anna stan or a serious fan. I have a positive opinion based on casually reading snippets about her. She seems so … together that I find it surprising that she was in a relationship where she was being abused. I’m not saying I don’t believe her. I guess what I’m saying is: if her, then anyone. Its eye opening. Maybe it’s so surprising because she has an acting background and she performs for us, like she performed for her abuser? That’s a bit of a jacked up take. Or maybe I just don’t know the timeline and this all happened long ago before she arrived on the public scene. She’s right about the costs of not showing the physical abuse. Viewers will be forced to make an effort to navigate the mind and the emotions which isn’t as simple as physical evidence. Some viewers won’t get it. Those waters are muddy. When you start wading into the whys and hows of people act or react the way they do in various circumstances, you’re not going to arrive at an answer everyone can agree on.
I hope this movie is incredibly successful. it’s such an important message – and thank you for covering it, Hecate. it must have been difficult for Anna, though probably empowering too.
I have my own experiences of abuse, and I think it’s really common to get into the headspace of “if only I was better, this wouldn’t happen” because we all want to feel like we’re in control of our lives. we hope it can go back to how it used to be, because abusive relationships don’t start out that way. they start out feeling good and then they devolve. so you wind up chasing the hope that it can be good again, and mentally minimizing how bad it has become.
I’m not sure I will be able to watch this, but I am so glad it exists, and that they made the choice not to have there be physical abuse as well.
I’m so glad that this film is being made. I hope all the sons and daughters see it so that they can learn from it. It has to stop. We can stop it by talking about it honestly. Movies like this allows us to share our stories and talk about it openly. Let’s keep the conversation going. ❤️
Like many of you, I will have a hard time watching this because of personal experience, but probably will because I think the message is so important.
In case helpful to anyone, I recently discovered DoctorRamani YouTube videos on narcissistic personalities (easy to find, just search). I almost never recommend anything, but these really have helped. She particularly helped me understand how/why my husband manipulated couples therapy to make me feel even worse and how he’s responding once he realized the emotional abuse and gaslighting aren’t working on me any more – it hasn’t been pretty. I thought I understood what was happening, but having it laid out so clearly and saying yep, yep, he totally was doing that has been validating and helps remind me that leaving is the right thing.
Sometimes there just is no hope – some people can’t and probably don’t even want to change. And, yes, even with no fear of physical abuse, emotional abuse can be incredibly traumatizing and frustrating to acknowledge even to yourself, let alone others, because there is no “proof” as Anna points out. And, like my husband, many narcissists are incredibly articulate, charismatic personalities who people outside the relationship think are amazing – which just feeds into the isolation and questioning of yourself. Sigh.
This comment hit me hard. I feel for you. I left someone like that almost five years ago, after almost 15 years of marriage, and I am still navigating the aftermath. He is articulate and can be very charming. There was no physical proof of anything being bad. I myself took on the task of making sure nothing “looked” bad to outsiders. He used couples therapy as a way to make me feel like an even worse wife. I just feel for you and hope you get out and away. I’m remarried now and while I’m still very traumatized, I live in a world where up is up and down is down consistently, and so does my daughter (well, half the time). Anyway. Love to you. Like others, I won’t watch this because it will hit too close to home but I am very glad it’s being made.