Darling (2016) Spoiler-Free Summary – What It's About

In a sprawling New York City home filled with creaking floors, shadowed hallways, and an air of faded grandeur, Babli—whom Madame calls “Darling”—begins a new chapter as the property’s caretaker. Madame’s departure leaves Babli with more than a job: an old house whose troubled reputation invites curiosity, plus a growing sense that the building holds memories better left undisturbed. The setting lends the story a hazy, storybook atmosphere, balancing domestic unease with the dry absurdity of a dark comedy.

Babli’s appetite for romance quickly turns her new surroundings into a source of confusion. Three eager men enter her orbit, each convinced that she shares his feelings and is ready to reciprocate. What begins as a search for connection becomes an intricate comedy of misplaced signals, mistaken attention, and conflicting expectations. Their eager advances create an awkward, increasingly chaotic dynamic, with Babli caught between desires she may not fully understand and attentions that seem designed to pull her in several directions at once.

As the romantic mix-up gathers momentum, the house’s strange atmosphere makes every coincidence feel charged. Strange noises, unsettling associations, and Babli’s own fragile state blur the line between a farce built on misunderstandings and something stranger taking shape beneath it. The humor remains rooted in social discomfort and characters seeing precisely what they want to see, while the mood grows increasingly tense. This collision of eager longing, domestic isolation, and psychological unease places Babli at the center of a peculiar world where affection, perception, and reality are all capable of misleading her.