''I Used to Be Darker'' is a 2013 independent drama film set and shot in

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, the third feature film directed by

Matthew Porterfield Matthew "Matt" Porterfield (born October 6, 1977) is an American independent filmmaker. He has made four feature films to date, ''Hamilton'' (2006), '' Putty Hill'' (2011), '' I Used to Be Darker'' (2013) and ''Sollers Point'' (2017). ''Putty Hi ...

Plot

Fleeing Northern Ireland after realizing she was pregnant, 19-year-old Taryn finds refuge with her aunt Kim in Baltimore. She is parting ways with her partner, Bill, under the reproachful gaze of their daughter Abby.

Cast

Deragh Campbell Deragh Campbell is a Canadian actress and filmmaker. She is known for her acclaimed performances in independent Canadian cinema. Her collaborations with filmmaker Sofia Bohdanowicz—'' Never Eat Alone'' (2016), '' Veslemøy's Song'' (2018), '' M ...

as Taryn *

Hannah Gross Hannah Gross (born ) is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her role as Debbie Mitford in the Netflix drama '' Mindhunter''. Early life Gross grew up in Toronto. She is the daughter of actors Martha Burns and Paul Gross. She attended N ...

as Abby *Ned Oldham as Bill * Kim Taylor as Kim *Nicholas Petr as Nick *Geoff Grace as Geoff *John Belanger as Ben *Jack Carneal as Jack *Juan Eloy Carrera as Arcade Player *

Adèle Exarchopoulos Adèle Exarchopoulos (; born 22 November 1993 in Paris) is a French actress. She is best known for her leading role as Adèle in '' Blue Is the Warmest Colour'' (2013), for which she earned international attention and critical acclaim; at the 20 ...

as Camille *Blake Pruitt as High Schooler *Declan Sammon as Sam *Ellis Woodward as Tom *Jimi Zhivago as Jimi

Development

Production

In July 2011,

started raising money to fund the production of ''I Used to Be Darker'' via

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

. The project achieved its goal of $40,000 on August 13, 2011.

Cast

Porterfield had already known Ned Oldham for several years before casting him as Bill, and Amy Belk went to college with Kim Taylor in the 1990s. After meeting Taylor and seeing her perform, Porterfield "knew almost immediately she had what ewas looking for". Porterfield first met

and Deragh Campbell when they attended the premiere of his previous film, ''

Putty Hill ''Putty Hill'' is a 2010 American independent drama film directed by Matthew Porterfield, and starring Sky Ferreira, Zoe Vance, and James Siebor. The plot focuses on friends and family who gather to remember a young man in the aftermath of his dea ...

'' (2010), but didn't keep in touch with them. He later auditioned Gross, following advice from a friend who is a professor at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, where Gross studies in the Experimental Theater Wing. Through Gross, Porterfield later met Campbell and cast them both in the film.

Reception

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

the film has an approval rating of 81% based on 21 reviews, with an average rating of 7.34 out of 10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film received a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score of 69 out of 100, based on 10 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". A.A. Dowd of ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

'' gave the film a grade A−, and wrote: "Drenched in the evening glow of its urban and suburban backdrops, Darker comes alive in the dark, when its characters are drowning their sorrows in song, the sauce, or conversation." Sheri Linden of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' wrote: "It's a story of contained chaos, quietly observed — one that catches fire more in retrospect than in the viewing."

Accolades

''I Used to Be Darker'' won the award for Best Narrative Feature at the

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...

in 2013 and

won the award for Best Director at the

Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema The Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (BAFICI, es, Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente) is an international festival of independent films organized each year in the month of April, in the city of ...

References

External links

* * * {{rotten-tomatoes, i_used_to_be_darker_2013, I Used to Be Darker 2013 films 2013 drama films American independent films Films set in Baltimore Films shot in Baltimore Kickstarter-funded films American drama films Crowdfunded films 2010s English-language films 2013 independent films 2010s American films