Don’t Worry Darling Ends Up More Shyamalan than Peele
If you’ve been following any kind of film news for the past few months, you’ve heard of Don’t Worry Darling. Oh, you might not know a lot about the plot of the film or the characters, but you’ve certainly heard a lot about all the off-screen drama with director Olivia Wilde and stars Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, and Chris Pine. You’ve probably seen the clips or memes from the Venice Film Festival of the tense interactions between the group during their screening or maybe you’ve analyzed the clip of Styles allegedly spitting on Pine like it was the Zapruder film. This is all to say that the behind-the-scenes antics have either piqued your curiosity about the film or made you want to avoid it at all costs. For me, it was the former, and I couldn’t wait to see if this little mystery movie was worth all the gossipy hype.
The story is about Alice (Pugh) and Jack (Styles), a young couple who seem to have a perfect life together in an ideal 1950s town called Victory. Like all the other couples in the neighborhood, she’s a housewife and he works for the mysterious company that runs the town. Every day is the same suburban bliss for Alice: breakfast, shopping, dinner, lots of steamy sex with her husband, rinse, repeat—and she could not be happier about it. But soon she starts to realize things aren’t quite what they seem and something is very wrong. Now she has to go up against Frank, the leader and most powerful man in the community, to try to solve the mystery.
I’ll avoid spoilers in this review, but I’m fairly confident people will be able to guess the twist pretty early on in the film. All the hints are obvious and despite being memed as “Get Out for white women” Don’t Worry Darling starts to feel a lot more like a mid-2000s M. Night Shyamalan movie than something from the brilliant mind of Jordan Peele. Despite the obvious twist, the movie thinks it’s more clever than it is, so it drags out the mystery as if we can’t figure out what’s going on, which can make things feel a bit tedious at times.
Thankfully, the cinematography from Matthew Libatique, costumes from Arianne Phillips, and overall production design from Katie Byron are top-notch, so there’s always something visually appealing to look at. The town of Victory feels like something out of The Sims in a way that is both beautiful and eerie, which fits with the tone of the story.
Likewise, the entire supporting cast including Wilde, Nick Kroll, Gemma Chan, Kate Berlant, Douglas Smith, Sydney Chandler, KiKi Layne, and Timothy Simons look perfectly vintage and seem to be enjoying their roles. Whatever off-screen drama has plagued the movie since it wrapped certainly isn’t present in any of the performances, and Wilde continues to show skill as a director after her incredible debut with Booksmart.
Still, it’s Pugh who carries this movie. We’re with her right from the beginning and always rooting for her when she tries to navigate the gaslighting and conformity of the world around her. A scene that sees her facing off with Pine is particularly fun, but also (unfortunately) highlights Styles’ shortcomings when it comes to performance.
Overall, Don’t Worry Darling is a bit too ambitious for its own good, attempting a sharp social commentary about the role of women, but never fully realizing its own aspirations. Pugh, the visuals, and even the music are all the pillars that attempt to hold up the film, but the screenplay from writers Katie Silberman, Carey Van Dyke, and Shane Van Dyke crumbles a little too quickly to cleverly nail the message.
