Don't Worry Darling review

DON’T WORRY DARLING: 

DESPITE THE TALENTS IN FRONT OF AND BEHIND THE CAMERA AND A HANDFUL OF INTERESTING IDEAS, OLIVIA WILDE’S SECOND DIRECTING EFFORT IS OVERLY PRETENTIOUS AND UNINSPIRED! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** out of 4

WARNER BROS. PICTURES AND NEW LINE CINEMA

Florence Pugh in Don’t Worry Darling

 

            Oliva Wilde (House, Tron: Legacy, Booksmart) returns to the director’s chair in Don’t Worry Darling, the latest psychological thriller and her second directing effort following 2019’s Booksmart. I like Olivia Wilde, both as a director and actress, enjoyed her performance as Quorra in Tron: Legacy and her directorial debut, Booksmart was among my all-time favorite films of 2019, so yeah, this woman’s got talent. 

            After striking gold with Booksmart, I was curious to see what she was going to follow it up with and that’s where Don’t Worry Darling comes in. There was both hype and some controversy surrounding it, mostly regarding on-set conflicts, most infamously the supposed firing/departure of Shia LaBeouf who was originally set to co-star in it among other things. 

            So, it’s kind of a miracle, this film saw the light of the day after the drama that happened behind-the-scenes. With that said, how does the movie hold up? It’s complicated! 

            On one hand, this is a beautifully shot film with gorgeous cinematography that really nails the 1950s setting, the star-studded cast is bringing their A-game and do an excellent job at keeping you engaged, has a great soundtrack, and there are a handful of interesting ideas explored. But on the other hand, this is not a well-written script that ranges from uninspired rehashes of other films that did this sort of concept a lot better to flat-out ludicrous. 

            The film follows Alice (Florence Pugh-Midsommar, Little Women (2019), Black Widow) and Jack Chambers (Harry Styles-One Direction: This Is Us, Dunkirk), a young happy couple in the 1950s and living in the perfect company town of Victory, California, which was created and paid for by a mysterious company that Jack works for. However, Alice soon realizes that maybe this seemingly perfect town is not as it appears as she races to uncover the terrifying truth behind their utopian lives. 

            The film also stars Wilde as Alice’s best friend Bunny, Gemma Chan (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Crazy Rich Asians, Eternals) as Shelley, KiKi Layne (If Beale Street Could Talk, Coming 2 America, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers) as Margaret, Nick Kroll (The League, Sausage Party, Big Mouth) as Bill, Chris Pine (Star Trekfranchise, Unstoppable, Wonder Woman 1 and 2) as Frank, Kate Berlant (Sorry to Bother You) as Peg, Douglas Smith (Big Love, Terminator: Genisys, Miss Sloane) as John, Timothy Simons (Veep, The Interview, The Boss) as Dr. Collins, and Dita Von Teese (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, RuPaul’s Drag Race) as Gigi. 

            Overall, Don’t Worry Darling is an unfortunate step backwards in Olivia Wilde’s directing career and despite being stunning on a technical level as well as having an appealing cast (Harry Styles not withstanding…he is the Eddie Redmayne from Jupiter Ascending of this film, I’m not joking!), the film falls flat narrative wise and in its execution. I don’t think this is a terrible movie as there are a lot of things to admire about it, but the plot is heavily derivative of other films with a similar premise, and it doesn’t really add much new to the formula. 

            It hits all the familiar beats you’d expect from a film like this especially if you’ve seen the trailer prior to it. I wouldn’t mind it if the film did something clever or unique with these tropes, but they don’t sadly. 

            Everything that happens in this film is entirely for plot convenience. Like you’ll have scenes where a character runs out into the forbidden desert because the plot says so, a character gives cryptic information before supposedly slitting his/her own throat because the plot says so, and characters will spew plot-important dialogue in random conversations that the audience needs to know, characters will leave behind items essential to the plot just for another character to find them. 

Also, another character literally tells Florence Pugh that he’s the antagonist like it’s a f*cking cartoon…that’s rated R and for adults…this script is dumb! I praised the actors for putting their all into their performances, but anything good from them does not come from the script. 

            The film also seems to have a difficult time trying to figure out when to be vague and mysterious and when to elaborate on what’s happening onscreen. Once you figure out what’s really going on with the town, there is hardly any focus on it aside from a couple scenes and it doesn’t make you look at this town in a brand new light, if anything the twist raises more questions, sure The Matrix is pretty vague but you at least have an understanding of how that world works and in The Truman Show, you quickly figure out that the town is a giant TV show set, this however, I have no idea what they were trying to do with this idea (Also, the film ends with one of those stupid “Did she or didn’t she?” vague endings!). 

            Don’t Worry Darling is a film I appreciate on a technical level, but on a storytelling one, this movie blows! It’s kind of like my thoughts on The Da Vinci Code trilogy where they aren’t good movies, but they’re made by a lot of talented people and the actors are really trying, which makes me very sad when the end result is something like this. 

            This could have been a fascinating thriller, even with the parallels to other movies with a similar idea. The pieces were there, but I don’t know if it was Olivia Wilde, the writer, or the studio interfering with the final product being this uninspired and underwhelming mess.