What was deemed to be the perfect society with beautiful couples and families, the perfect tidy home and daily home-cooked meals, was actually a creepy, overpowered male-dominated society with its goals set on control and omnipotence.
Directed by Olivia Wilde, Don’t Worry, Darling was set in a deserted town, Victory, where everyone is oddly in unison. The houses. The cars. The relationships with their spouses. But most of all, their desire to continue expanding the Victory Project.
The fantastical town is made up of inhabitants who enjoy their life. The women go shopping, travel on the trolley and interact with the founder —and menace— of the Victory Project, Frank (Chris Pine).
Everything is seemingly too perfect. Alice (Florence Pugh), is the wife of a hardworking man who fulfills her divine feminine goals of cleaning the house, doing the laundry, preparing a home-cooked meal and joyously waiting for her husband Jack’s return.
Jack (Harry Styles) is a charming, gallant man who expects dinner served on the dining room table… where a gift also lays waiting to be opened.
Wilde’s directing consisted of extreme, and purposefully, repetitive closeups, flashbacks, stealthy scene changes and overall confusion. But if you paid close attention, you could spot the hidden Easter eggs foreshadowing the disaster to come.
Alice soon becomes troubled as her naturally curious mind begins to question the unusually similar behavior of her neighbors. One of her neighbors, Margaret began to rebel against Victory, and even publicly stated her distaste for the dystopian society.
After Alice witnessed her suicide, she began to spiral— the supposed hallucinations, detachment, loss of time and utter confusion began to overwhelm Alice.
But as overwhelmed as Alice was, the audience was even more overwhelmed by a heap of additional drama that came ahead of the film’s release.
As extensively reported, actress Olivia Wilde’s second directorial effort after the 2019 hit teen comedy Booksmart drew early buzz due to its star-studded production. Coverage subsequently exploded due to reported set tensions that carried over to its ultimately Internet-breaking marketing tour.
Wilde’s very public divorce from comedian Jason Sudeikis played a factor. Her romantic correspondence with rockstar Harry Styles, whom she replaced “combative” Shia LaBeouf with as the male lead in the film, played a factor. Pugh severing ties with Wilde supposedly due to the filmmaker citing concerns for Pugh’s safety as cause for LaBeouf’s termination, despite LaBeouf later posting videos of Wilde pleading for him to stay on the production, played a factor. Pugh sitting out of the film’s panel at the Venice Film Festival, but attending the premiere immediately afterward anyway played a factor.
And Styles potentially – zoom-enhances on the footage like its Zapruder-made — spitting on Chris Pine at said premiere was icing on the cake colored by a cavalcade of juicy controversy.
However, don’t let this onslaught of distracting agents undercut the film’s certifiable high quality like many felt charged to– forging their opinions before they even confronted the text. Granted, Don’t Worry Darling certainly is not the modern-day Truman Show or The Matrix it desired to be. But what can be, really? That’s setting the bar pretty damn high.
What it did perfectly demonstrate: (1) the movie-loving public was clamoring for a come-down from the Will Smith/Chris Rock slap saga that either happened 9 months ago or 9 years ago– and that (2) Harry Styles is just fine as an actor. Any isolated “cry reel” or contextually devoid heated argument pull clip is going to register as jarring and distorted as the Styles leaks did for those ready to write him off before they even saw the movie.
As was customary with a film of this ilk, don’t be so certain out of the gate, either– let the dominoes fall where they may. Allow yourself to slip into a manufactured reality for 2 hours of your life, tailor-designed for your benefit.
The reward you will leave with: finally knowing what about Don’t Worry, Darling had everyone in such a furious tailspin upon its release. You think these stars had tension on the red carpet? Their characters’ stakes are far more severe in this work of can’t-miss cinema.
After making $86 million on a $20 million budget at the box office, Don’t Worry, Darling hit HBO Max on November 7. Those without a direct HBO Max subscription can access the streaming platform free of additional charge with their TV provider login info.
Listen to The Messenger break down the film’s notoriety and comparable works further on its recently-launched pop culture podcast, Reis ‘n Daniella. Episode 1 features the aforementioned Don’t Worry, Darling commentary, while episode 2 teases the season’s forthcoming mega movie event, Wakanda Forever. The highly-anticipated Black Panther sequel released in theaters on Thursday.
