Don’t Worry Darling – A Half-Baked Psychological Thriller

The bad publicity leading to the world premiere of Don’t Worry Darling at this year’s Venice Film Festival preceding its now theatrical release this weekend has been stuff of legend. Already widely-reported, there isn’t really a need to go through it again here but there is certainly something going on here that never quite seemed right. The second directorial feature from Olivia Wilde following the hit teen comedy Booksmart, this new film goes in a much different direction and never truly came together. With plenty of worthy pieces along with the anticipation of Wilde’s follow-up, the film has garnered plenty of hype and deservedly so. While those pieces definitely deliver, including stellar production design and cinematography along with a powerful score on the technical side and a spectacular lead performance from Florence Pugh, what ultimately sinks the film is a cheesy and half-baked script that eventually devolves into utter nonsense following a twist that could be seen from a mile away. Resting firmly on the shoulders of Florence Pugh, she’s on a completely different level as the only one who appears to be trying here though at the end of the day, she could only do so much. She simply deserves better.

Don’t Worry Darling follows a couple named Alice (Pugh) and Jack (Styles) who live in an exclusive picturesque 1950s style community knows as Victory. While the men worked for the secretive Victory Project, the women were expected to stay home and tend to their households, husbands, and families if applicable whenever they weren’t spending time flaunting with the other women. The brainchild of a charismatic visionary and motivational coach named Frank (Pine), he held a strong grip on the people of Victory both figuratively and literally. With everything anyone could ever need in exchange for discretion and unconditional loyalty, things looked perfect on paper but something unsurprisingly had to give as cracks began to form along that picturesque façade. In spite of how Victory appeared, anyone could figure out that there was something more sinister going on beneath the surface. Not the most original plot beat by any means, the film flounders with what to do with it, paving a predictable path littered with cheese as Alice began to question her surroundings and got some blowback.

Alice found herself flighting what looked to be a losing battle against the patriarchal system that kept her held back, preferring her to be more of a prototypical housewife. If the film’s setting was any indication, the messaging couldn’t be any less subtle. Perhaps valuing the system put together in Victory but more so Frank above all else, gaslighting was how Jack and Victory fought back among other methods. The weight of all those questions and concerns eventually proved to be insurmountable despite their efforts to keep them at bay. Once everything was inevitably on the table, Don’t Worry Darling became a lot more interesting though still kept audiences at arm’s length as it didn’t even bother answering any questions or providing any explanations for anything. That being said, it was merely marginally better than the dull set-up that preceded it. While still predictable, Alice was compelling to watch as she was the only character who remotely did anything throughout the film. That was of course until the story decided to take one more ridiculous turn to undercut itself as it floundered some more, attempting to tie all of its half-baked ideas together. In the end, it just didn’t work.

What did work was its aforementioned technical prowess but however good Don’t Worry Darling may look or sound, the film provides little reason to care. The film’s saving grace is Pugh who single-handedly carries the film albeit by default. In spite of a derivative story, she delivers emotion and makes Alice at least somewhat compelling to watch while surrounded by next to nothing whatsoever. Though the film didn’t seem to have a grasp of what it wanted to do or what it wanted to say, she made it work. Styles as Jack was there as was an impressive supporting cast on paper. Pugh lifted them all.

At the end of the day, Don’t Worry Darling is nothing to worry about or even have a thought about.

still courtesy of Warner Bros.

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.