Don’t Worry Darling, the ambitious new thriller that is as star-studded as it is scandal-ridden. At this point, it is nearly impossible to separate the film from the controversies surrounding it in the headlines. I’ll be the first to admit that I was looking forward to this movie prior to its current tabloid messiness. The first trailers looked interesting, the cast is exciting, Florence Pugh is seemingly incapable of giving a bad performance in a movie, and I’m a big fan of Booksmart, director Olivia Wilde’s filmmaking debut. Don’t Worry Darling had a lot working in its favor prior to its self-destructing press tour, but unfortunately, the finished product fails to live up to the hype of its initial marketing or overcome the obstacles of its damaged reputation. Instead, it’s just deeply strange.
The film follows Alice and Jack (Florence Pugh and Harry Styles), a beautiful young couple living the ideal 1950s American Dream lifestyle in an eerily secluded development of company housing. Alice and the other housewives stay home to cook and clean while Jack and the men leave each morning to work for the mysterious “Victory Project”, led by their charismatic boss Frank (Chris Pine), who the town worships like a cult god. When Alice begins to notice increasingly surreal cracks in her reality, she starts questioning the secrets the men are withholding, and the societal roles her and her fellow housewives are being restricted to.
If this plot synopsis seems derivative of several other movies which have aimed to satirize facets of suburban American life, that’s because it is. This movie borrows so heavily from what came before that it winds up having almost nothing new to offer on its own. When the credits roll, it’s turned out to be little more than a glossier Stepford Wives starring current A-listers. While most of its influences are from the movies you’d expect, there is one reveal towards the end (which I won’t go into spoilery detail about here) that suddenly veers into some bizarre, M. Night Shyamalan territory. Just another one of the dozen peculiar things about Don’t Worry Darling.
On the topic of its ending, Don’t Worry Darling does, in fact, have a shocking twist in the third act. For those who know what to look for when watching a thriller, I imagine this development will explain itself in the film’s opening moments, but that’s beside the point. Wilde has been very vocal about how proud she is to showcase the film’s many sexually charged scenes between Styles and Pugh, as she views them as being crafted through the lens of female desire. While I appreciate the sentiment, the reveals at the end of this movie actually wind up casting doubt over how consenting both characters were in those acts. Pugh has been very vocal about how she feels uncomfortable with this movie being sold on its sex scenes. Having seen the full movie, I’ve got to agree with her. I doubt anyone could watch this movie to the end and say those more explicit moments were ultimately anything other than haunting. Beyond that, the idea that the director, lead actress, and studio could each view such an important aspect of this movie’s content in such contradictory ways is really not a good sign. It’s one more trouble spot for the movie and an unfortunate glimpse into the realities of its controversial production.
It’s not all bad, however. Florence Pugh is truly fantastic in this movie, utilizing the same sort of manic breakdown intensity that she brought to Midsommar. That being said, watching an emotionally exhausting performance in a movie that doesn’t rise to the level of its star is a somewhat alienating experience. You can’t help but feel bad for the actor for going this hard on a movie that wasn’t worth it. Controversially, starring beside her is a decent Harry Styles, who uses his last few minutes of screentime to showcase what he’s capable of. Unfortunately, for the preceding hour and a half he mostly seems content to model his period costume pieces, as opposed to creating a character.
The thing that’s most odd about Don’t Worry Darling is its complete disconnect from itself. None of the actors seem to be in the same movie, the leading lady and the director apparently hold contradictory views on what the movie is saying, and its tone shifts wildly from the conventional thriller-satire it’s been sold as, to an almost experimental art house strangeness that clashes with the rest of the movie. It’s very hard to make a boundary-pushing experimental film that’s also produced by one of the largest studios in Hollywood and features one of the biggest pop stars on the planet. Those ideas contradict each other and make for a confusing watch.
Ultimately, the behind-the-scenes drama has already proven to be the most interesting part of this film. Nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is, Don’t Worry Darling is a truly disappointing misfire from an otherwise impressive creative team.
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Score
