MOVIE REVIEW: "Don’t Worry, Darling" Wants You to Talk About It, Not Think About It
I probably would’ve thought more highly of Don’t Worry, Darling if I hadn’t received an unplanned phone call from my mom and brother as I exited the theater. They’d seen Olivia Wilde’s new psychological thriller a few days earlier, making their call a serendipitous chance to talk through our thoughts on the film. And while my opinions are shielded from the winds of public or private opinion, talking with some other recent victims of Wilde’s nightmare certainly swayed me further towards the darkside. Because Don’t Worry, Darling is a delicate film, precariously constructed, that falls apart the second you begin to tug on its myriad loose ends; and that phone call was the perfect opportunity to tug.
Don’t Worry, Darling opens at a party. Wives jostle around in pin-up gowns, serving alcohol to their overdressed husbands. The music of the ‘1950s fills whatever air isn’t already being consumed by the sexual tension of the film’s star couple: Alice and Jack Chambers (Florence Pugh and Harry Styles). This curtain raiser may be the best metaphor the film has to offer (and there are a lot of offerings), as the air around this movie - what should be a stylish thriller, awed at by general audiences, panned by critics, then forgotten to history - has been engulfed in off-screen drama. All eyes were on Pugh, Styles, and director/star Olivia Wilde months before Don’t Worry, Darling premiered in Venice this September. The style, the fun, the actual details that comprise the film fell by the wayside long ago for tabloid exploits. Just focus on Harry and Florence, ignore the rest. That was the M.O. for Don’t Worry, Darling’s publicity- and seemingly what Olivia Wilde aimed for in the movie itself.
This is where I’d usually tell you that “what begins as…turns into… by the end.” However, with Don’t Worry, Darling what begins as a 1950s cult-suburb in the Californian desert crumbling under the weight of its own fantasy ends as, well, just that. From the outset, Alice is skeptical of the idyllic Sears-catalog-esque world she lives in. Known as the Victory Project, this is a place where husbands go off to work on an undisclosed project in the desert mountains everyday, while their wives stay at home to cook, clean, and take care of the children. Just the rudimentary nuclear family, patriarchal norms that we often think of when we think of the mid-20th century. They aren’t reinventing the wheel here, just focusing their attention entirely on it.
Of course, things aren’t as peachy as they seem in paradise. Paranoia amongst the housewives spreads slowly, a disease that the Victory Project’s higher-ups are dead set on stopping. Hallucinations float into reality, like olives in martinis. Every man - which is to say, every person in a position of power - tells the women that they’re just imagining things, that they’re safe, that they shouldn’t question. If you’ve heard this plot structure before, it’s probably because the film quite literally follows the “gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss” mantra. Don’t Worry, Darling spends the majority of its runtime being an obnoxiously one-note “commentary” on how the patriarchy oppresses women. “Men bad.” Yes, I agree, but would you care to go a little further with the idea, Olivia?
The answer: an emphatic no. Instead of actually exploring a Punishment Park-turned-Truman Show examination of societal gender roles, the third act settles for twist after twist, none of which are particularly well hidden, nor original. Anyone who’s seen Black Mirror or Serenity (2019) has seen the last third of this film. What differentiates Don’t Worry, Darling from its prior peers, however, is that its twists actively undermine the not-so-careful worldbuilding the film spends nearly two hours completing. “Why does ___ happen?” should be a simple question a confused audience member can ask without the film collapsing in on itself. Not here, though. It’s as if the screenplay were written by a blindfolded pseudoscientist without a backspace key. Don’t ask them questions, for they know not what they’ve written.
Of course, this isn’t an accurate transcript of my phone call with my family. There’s a lot of love to be given to Florence Pugh, who continues to prove that she’s one of the great movie stars in the world, as well as the set design, cinematography, and score. From a technical standpoint, Don’t Worry, Darling is a fine piece of filmmaking. We acknowledged as much in our conversation. But its egregious writing and some unbecoming performances - namely from Harry Styles - stop it from ever truly taking flight.
As an on-going media circus, Don’t Worry, Darling is fantastic. You can talk about that endlessly, always pulling on new threads, starting down new exciting corridors of gossip. As a film, though, that doesn’t really work. Because the more you talk about it, the more you think about it; and the more you think about it, the less sense it makes. That makes for a great phone call, but far from a great movie.
Acting/Casting - 1 | Visual Effects and Editing - 1 | Story and Message - 0 | Entertainment Value - 1 | Music Score and Soundtrack - 2 | Reviewer’s Preference - 1 | What does this mean?