The actress Natalie Dormer has defended her new thriller following criticism of its female nudity and unsettling erotic content.
Dormer, who stars in and co-wrote the suspenseful In Darkness, released in Britain this weekend, said she had been surprised by critical reaction to a sex scene between the romantic leads and a shower sequence.
A critic on the renowned American film website, rogerebert.com, wrote of his discomfort with the film’s “sadistic relish”, while admiring some of its direction, and a review in the industry magazine the Hollywood Reporterdetected “gratuitous nudity”. It might have upset some audiences, Dormer argues, but it was creatively necessary and did not undermine her feminist approach to her work. “Of course, you learn. When you make something, you learn that no matter how pure your intentions other people will see things in it,” said Dormer, 36, who is best known for playing the sexually manipulative Margaery Tyrell in Game of Thrones.
“There has to be sexuality in the power play of a thriller. We have all got bodies, after all. In this film the sex scene, which for me was a love-making scene, is a metaphor for the way my character connects with the part played by [fellow Game of Thrones actor] Ed Skrein. Nakedness is a good equaliser and the shower scene also shows the tattoos on my character’s body and makes it clear she is not quite who you think.”
In Darkness, which Dormer wrote with her Irish partner Anthony Byrne, who also directs, is set in London, with the plot revolving around the death of a mysterious woman, which is overheard by a blind musician, Sofia, who lives in the apartment below.
It gradually becomes apparent that Sofia, played by Dormer, is not as vulnerable as she seems. Byrne and Dormer were inspired by their love of film noir of the 1940s and by the tense psychological thrillers of the 1970s. Copying this template, Dormer argued, led inevitably to the erotic content of the story.
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