OnScreen Review: "Don't Worry Darling"
Ken Jones, Chief Film Critic
A few months back, Don’t Worry Darling was one of the most anticipated films of the year with a stellar cast and Olivia Wilde in the director’s chair for her follow-up to the critically beloved Booksmart. Fast forward through the summer to September, and Don’t Worry Darling has had to weather several media storms surrounding it, to the point that the drama surrounding the film threatens to eclipse the film itself. Is this sci-fi-twinged domestic mystery thriller good enough to rise above the maelstrom or is it destined to be forever subsumed by the narrative surrounding it and become another troubled Hollywood production cautionary tale?
Wilde’s sophomore effort as a director is jammed pack with a lot of ideas and influences, some from classic sci-fi and some from more modern experiences. The film is set in a 50s utopia known as Victory, California where Alice (Florence Pugh) spends her days in “domestic bliss” while her husband Jack (Harry Styles) works in the top-secret Victory Headquarters. Victory is a company town, and all of the men who live there work for the company and the women clean the house and cook the meal and do the shopping. It is in the middle of the desert in an undisclosed location that seems to be closed off to the outside world and is run but the charismatic Frank (Chris Pine), the founder of Victory. Alice’s domestic tranquility is disrupted, and she begins to question everything about Victory.
It is very clear from early on in the film that things in Victory are just a bit off or a bit… too: Too happy, too sunny, too in unison, too monotonous, too perfect. It is an idealized version of a world that these people want to make for themselves, and Frank is at the heart of it all with his all too loyal workers idolizing his every word. Well-versed sci-fi fans may think of The Stepford Wives, something out of The Twilight Zone, or more recent like The Matrix, Inception, The Village, Twin Peaks, or even Wayward Pines. It wears its influences on its sleeve and telegraphs where things are going. Something is clearly off in this small town, there are areas that are off limits, and there is more going on than meets the eye and the question is what is the grand conspiracy or mystery at the center of it all?
Once Alice has her experience in the desert, it is not so much that her eyes are opened like Neo, it is more like her reality begins to unravel and everything makes her, and others, begin to question her sanity. She experiences flashes of moments and images, experiences hallucinations like the walls literally closing in behind her when she is cleaning a glass window, and an increasing unease about remaining in Victory. All the while, Jack is rising up the ranks of the Victory Headquarters.
Overall, I think the cast is solid. Pugh is, per usual, a captivating and compelling presence on screen and she makes the most of the material given her. There are moments that lean into her strengths, two scenes that reminded me of two moments from Midsommar where she is looking up at someone about to do something unthinkable and she has to react to that, and then a few scenes of her crying (maybe it is weird, but she’s a good on-screen crier). While it has been stated by Wilde that Pine’s Frank was based on public (pseudo) intellectual Jordan Peterson, he reminded me a bit of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd in The Master and the sway he holds over the followers in his movement.
I also quite liked the costume and set design of this world (seemingly?) set in the 1950s and all that it entails with the women doting on the men and being a world that exists mainly for the benefit of the men and their urges and desires. Practically every night Jack comes home, Alice has a five-course meal waiting for him when he walks through the door. Whether they get right to that meal or, more likely, they fall into each other’s arms and start making love anywhere in the house comes down to a daily coin toss. In a world where a Make America Great Again has opined for the “good old days” of the 1950s in America, it is pretty clear that Don’t Worry Darling is at least in some small part a commentary on that. There is also definitely some social commentary about the world existing on the whim of men and their feelings of inadequacy and need to feel like they are part of something important and providing for their family. But mainly being part of something important.
Generally speaking, I am a fan of these kinds of lite sci-fi movies and the concept of a town that seems too good to be true. And Don’t Worry Darling has just enough mystery to it to keep you guessing as to what exactly is going on until all is ultimately revealed even though you have a pretty good idea where things are going more or less. But much like the company town of Victory, there are problems lurking below the surface of Don’t Worry Darling that begin to be more noticeable the longer the movie goes.
In the moment, I was willing to go along with most of what the film was doing, but the more I sat with it and as I left the theater, there was an unmistakable feeling that there were too many loose ends that weren’t tied up, including Alice’s ultimate fate. Mild spoiler warning, I think the film thinks it is leaving Alice in an uplifting and hopeful place, but in reality, given some of the glimpses into the reality of things, it could be pretty dire.
That there is a twist/reveal as to what Victory is all about should not be surprising. But that reveal calls into question a lot of what has previously transpired and how exactly things work in the world of this film. What were the rumblings or mini earthquakes that were hinted at as being something that the Victory company was working on? Alice sees an airplane fall out of the sky, was that real or imagined? It does not seem as though Don’t Worry Darling is interested in answering these questions and more, and I have my doubts that the film holds up as well on a second viewing because of that. Despite an intriguing premise and some high-concept ideas, this does not come across as a fully realized world, and the film suffers for it. And while I am usually more generous and forgiving of how a film’s third act resolves itself, this one does not resolve itself well at all as there are just too many lingering questions.
There is a scene in Don’t Worry Darling where Alice awakens and finds Jack trying to make dinner for them, and he is so over the top, comically inept that it is actually absurd, to the point of trying to make mashed potatoes out of raw, uncooked potatoes and hitting them with some object. It is a scene that is emblematic of the film itself; it has the right ingredients, it is really trying, but it is not able to put them together to make a satisfying meal. It may not be the train wreck that so many people think it is, but it is likely never going to be able to completely rise above the noise surrounding it.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars