Don’t Worry Darling: Don’t Worry About Missing it

Don’t Worry Darling, the sophomore film by director Olivia Wilde, opened in theaters on September 23rd after what can only be regarded as a nightmare for the PR team in the weeks leading up to its release. With cast fighting, the replacement of Shia Labeouf with Harry Styles, and speculation on whether Harry Styles spit on Chris Pine, Twitter was constantly buzzing in anticipation of the film’s release. The film itself started off strong, with solid, perhaps a bit cliche, visuals, fitting music and intriguing characters. As intended, the opening scene made the film seem like a love story. Overall, the beginning of the film showed great promise. However, that all went sour as the film continued. 

The film, in addition to being confusing and hard to follow, somehow has both too much and not enough in terms of plot,with a plane crash that goes nowhere and Florence Pugh wrapping her head in cellophane for apparently no reason other than a good shot for the trailer.While important details take up only a few minutes, most of the screen time is filled with house work montages and ballet classes,  get-togethers and dinner parties. The film’s plot all came to a crashing halt in a ridiculous “it’s all a simulation” reveal. 

Don’t Worry Darling was marketed as a feminist psychological thriller, with the intention to empower woman with female centered sex scenes and strong female characters. While the film’s sex scenes were meant to center women and female pleasure, the idea that Harry Styles’ character (who is painted as an incel Andrew Tate-esque follower) would enthusiastically go down on his wife is, frankly, ridiculous. The sex scenes couldn’t possibly be female centered or empowering because Alice gave no consent to the situation and her memory had been erased. This is not a film about female pleasure, it is a film about manipulation and should not have been marketed as a film flush with women-centered sex scenes.

Another glaringly obvious issue with this film was the many logistic inconsistencies. The film on one hand displays a perfect world that nobody else seems to have any issues with, but on the other hand shows a myriad of bugs with the simulations, from eggshells with nothing in them to walls that close in randomly. When you consider how many issues must be going on in a simulation for planes to randomly crash, you’d have to imagine there would be other issues and bugs in the simulation as well, and that Alice would not be the only one who has noticed that something is going on.

One of the only scenes that seemed to work well was the dinner party scene towards the end of the film. From the camera work to the compelling dialogue, everything in this scene seemed to go cohesively in a way that was surprising when compared to the rest of the film. The compelling monologue and performance by Pugh combined with the visuals and the severe tension that was brought forth by the camera work brews a persistent sense of anxiety for the viewer. The dinner party scene felt like it was what the movie wanted to be the entire time.

The issues with the storyline were obvious, especially towards the end of the film. Pughs Character, Alice murders Jack, played by Harry Styles, and is told that only men die in real life as well as the simultion, which doesn’t make much sense when considering the simulation was designed by a misogynist, Frank, who outside the simulation is an “alpha male” podcaster. Alice then conducts a high speed chase with men in red jumpsuits, which felt like an obvious homage to Us by Jordan Peele that felt less like a nod or an inspiration and more of a cheap imitation. The car scene ends in a fiery car crash, which seemed to only have been added to give the blockbuster budget something to do. The end of the film was nowhere near as exciting or as tense as the dinner party scene. 

It was unclear exactly who was at fault for the unfortunate quality of this film. It would seem easy to blame the screenwriter, but Olivia Wilde is not completely off the hook for how this film turned out. The actors gave it their all, (that’s not surprising, everyone knows that Florence Pugh can act) but that alone can’t save the film. Harry Styles was a terrible casting choice. He was not ready to be cast a villain because he’s just not taken seriously enough. The theater laughed every time Harry Styles’ character was meant to be serious, he just simply does not have the reputation that allows him to be in a serious acting role, as unfair as that may be. His acting was nowhere near the quality of Florence Pugh’s. 

What was the most upsetting about this film was that it had potential: if the script had been revisited, scenes had been cut, moved, and reworked, this film could have been compelling and fascinating. The marketing was skewed and untrue to the story, the direction only felt focused during certain scenes, and only those scenes felt well done.The film had lots of potential to be a good movie– it just simply didn’t reach it.

Watching this film felt equivalent to reading the first draft of a creative writing assignment: lots of promise and very good for a first attempt, but certainly not something ready to be in circulation or available to the public.