“Don’t Worry Darling” is worrying, darling
Released on Sept. 23, Olivia Wilde’s new film, “Don’t Worry Darling” elicited controversy and gossip, even before its release. There was talk about an affair between Wilde and the film’s male lead, Harry Styles, rumors about a feud between Wilde and the film’s female lead, Florence Pugh and even a theory that Harry Styles spit on his co-star, Chris Pine, during one of their world premieres. I bring up these events to illustrate that this drama was far more interesting and engaging than Wilde’s actual film.
“Don’t Worry Darling” is Olivia Wilde’s second film and functions as a commentary on the societal misogyny that women face. The film’s tone is radically different from the likes of Wilde’s first film, 2019’s “Booksmart”, which was a light-hearted teen comedy, whereas “Don’t Worry Darling” is a much darker film that scarcely, if ever, uses comedy to elicit a laugh.
The story follows Alice Chambers, played by Florence Pugh, who begins to question the squeaky-clean suburbia she lives in with her husband, Jack Chambers, played by Harry Styles. The main town the movie takes place in, called “Victory,” is modeled after 1950’s Palm Springs, which is admittedly a good inspiration for a nauseatingly perfect location. Keeping to a more positive theme, another thing I really liked about the film was Florence Pugh’s performance. She continues to be one of the most talented upcoming actors in recent memory, and this film is no exception. She completely embraced the role and understood Wilde’s messy vision, something that none of the actors, save Chris Pine, could.
On the topic of actors, I don’t think it’s much of a secret that Harry Styles should have stuck to singing. He delivers all of his lines not like a real person, but rather someone trying to deliver a good performance. This method of acting is fine in practice, but Styles is no Daniel Day-Lewis. His performance comes across as bored and uninterested, with the only emotions he shows being happy and angry. Needless to say, he doesn’t have much range.
There are plot points and symbols that are abruptly dropped, such a specific scene involving a plane. Throughout most of the first act, attention is heavily drawn to this plane, as well as a whole “plane” motif. However, after a certain point in the movie, the plane is never seen, nor mentioned again. I focus on this to illustrate a problem with the movie: it wants to have profound meaning, but struggles to justify it. Many examples can be found. The plane is supposed to be a symbol; of what? There’s a random dance dream with costumed girls that vaguely represent something; why?
The movie is incredibly surface level. For many viewers, the ending will be extremely predictable. It follows a typical twist structure, hitting all the beats you’d expect it to, which is a huge problem that the movie has. It’s predictable and nothing out of the ordinary. The best movies nowadays are films that can do something original and unexpected. Even if they are adaptations of a prior work, the ones that stand out are those that are able to do something new with their source material. “Don’t Worry Darling” does nothing new, is not surprising and fails to do anything interesting.