Olivia Wilde‘s follow-up to Booksmart (2019, a film I enjoyed) was supposed to be brilliant. I remember when the first trailer dropped, and I couldn’t wait to watch it. But then, the behind-the-scenes drama started to unravel (google “Don’t Worry Darling behind the scenes drama” or “Don’t Worry Darling Shia LaBeouf“), the second trailer dropped and didn’t do much for me, and then, the awkward promos for this movie, trying to pretend like everything is/was fine whilst they were making it… Oh yeah, the fact this movie got middling reviews also didn’t help, and I just kind of forgot about this movie until it arrived on one of my streaming platforms, where I finally caught it the other day. And… yeah, there are some issues.
I can’t decide whether this movie’s biggest problem is its predictability or whether it’s the fact that the film is as deep as a kiddie pool. Don’t Worry Darling desperately wants to be a movie about something larger than itself, but it doesn’t “walk the walk”; so to speak. Every time I thought we were finally examining something (an idea, story element, side character) in depth, the movie said: “Nah, forget about it!” It was frustrating as there were some hints of brilliance, but everything was very surface-level.
For example, a big part of this film is knowing something is wrong here. And if you have seen literally a few movies in your life, you can safely predict the big “twist”. Which is fine; sometimes, it’s not about the destination, it is more about how you get there and the road you take. That is when I thought the movie has to put the cards on the table and will finally explore its main characters for us to understand them. And no, that doesn’t happen. We see glimpses of something that should give you everything you should need, but that fell flat for me. For a film that wanted to be this big piece about freedom and feminism and seemed to be exploring ideas of leadership, faith and ignorance, it does very little work, and instead, it focuses on the aesthetics of the 1950s more than anything else. Don’t Worry Darling may be one of the best examples of “style over substance”, unfortunately.
The one major thing this movie had going for it was Florence Pugh. Her character carries this movie on her tiny frame, and at times, it feels almost undeserved. I would love to compliment other actors, as there were many great ones here (from Olivia to Chris Pine, KiKi Layne, Gemma Chan or Timothy Simons), but unfortunately, neither made an impression because they were not given anything compelling. Take Chris Pine and Gemma Chan – they play a couple in this movie. We understand he is evil, but do we ever learn why? Without going into spoilers, no. We never find out why he does “it” or how “it” came about. Gemma Chan had two decent scenes, and her final one was supposed to be impactful, but it wasn’t because we don’t know anything about her! Is she also evil? Or did she spot her chance? There are a couple more questions about her character, but asking those would be “spoilery”, so I won’t. But her final scene was wasted because we have never learned anything about her or Pine’s character. They just exist.
That brings me to Harry Styles. Look, is he the best actor? No. Was he bad? Also no. He was… ok. His performance was perfectly “serviceable” in this film, but again, we learned next to nothing about him. And we should have, given what we find out about his character later on, really should have spent more time on/with him to understand his motivations besides the five-minute scene that was supposed to give us all we needed. The problem with that scene was it felt very two-dimensional. Don’t Worry Darling wants to play this complex 5D chess game about life, freedom and choices (or lack thereof), but it shoots itself in both legs when we are given the bare minimum about all our characters. And don’t get me started on that ending that pretends to be hopeful (?), but in reality, it’s not, and I don’t think the movie realises that.
I feel like Olivia has bitten more than she could chew for her second feature. I like her, but I have to say, she shouldn’t have directed this movie as it felt… weird. There were choices made that would every now and then take me out of the film (like having the camera spin in circles when a few of our characters are having a conversation) but most importantly, this feels like a movie that we have seen so much already, you have to bring something new. Subvert the genre, do something different, don’t give us the bare minimum with barely two-dimensional characters and call it a day. Imagine how this material would have looked in the hands of someone like Jordan Peele or Christopher Nolan. You know, directors who understand how to subvert expectations and take you on a journey you won’t forget. Unlike this movie, I struggle to remember now, and it hasn’t been even a week since I saw it!
Overall, Don’t Worry Darling is one of the luckiest movies ever because it had Florence Pugh, who singlehandedly, uplifted it above average. If it weren’t for her, my rating would be just average, as that is what this movie is – a fine movie with some pretty visuals and flashes of intriguing ideas, but nothing that would stick with you for too long or get explored any further. It’s also one of those movies where the behind-the-scenes drama would have probably made a better movie than the one I just witnessed. I hope Olivia’s next directorial attempt will be better as I still have hope (and I also really enjoyed Booksmart and hope it wasn’t a fluke).
That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!
Until next time,
Luke