By Rose Caisley '26
Don't Worry Darling: 2 hours of Florence Pugh trying desperately trying to save this intriguing but ultimately sloppily executed thriller.
Photo Courtesy of IMDb
What do you get when you combine lush cinematography, a tour de force performance by one of Hollywood's leading ladies, and one of the hottest up-and-coming directors in Hollywood? The answer should be obvious: Florence Pugh's first Oscar win, widespread cultural recognition for Olivia Wilde, and an amazing leading man film debut for Harry Styles. Instead, you get a cavalcade of behind-the-scenes drama, a Rotten Tomatoes score of 38%, and Harry Styles allegedly spitting at fellow cast member Chris Pine.
Don't Worry Darling, the thriller directed by Olivia Wilde, stars Florence Pugh as Alice, a fifties housewife who lives in the seemingly perfect company town Victory, in California. Her dashing husband Jack, played by Styles, works as a technical engineer at the mysterious Victory Project. Alice spends her days gossiping with her best friend Bunny, also played by Wilde, spending endless amounts of money shopping, and of course cooking and cleaning and waiting for Jack to come home. After witnessing her friend Margaret, played by Kiki Lane, kill herself, she begins to question the underlying sinister nature of the idyllic town. As she begins to get closer to the truth, she starts to face off against Victory Project founder Frank, played by Pine, and even her husband Jack. All in all, the conceit is compelling, and the cast is all-star, so how did it go so wrong?
Photo Courtesy of IMDb
Well for starters, Don't Worry Darling has been plagued with problems since the beginning. Actor Shia LaBeouf was originally cast to play the role of Jack, but off-screen clashes with both Wilde and Pugh led to him being severed from the project. LaBeouf says he quit, Wilde says he was fired. We may never know the truth, but LaBeouf did release a video to Variety where Wilde seemingly confirmed his side of the story saying she wasn't ready to "give up on this" and that perhaps this would be a "wake up call to" Pugh. A wake-up call to what is unclear. But the drama didn't stop there. Wilde also supposedly got in a fight with Pugh on set, which led to Pugh doing little of the press tour, although this has been denied by her representatives who said that there were conflicts between the press tour dates and filming for Dune: Part II. At the Venice Film Festival, Pine was visibly tuning out and not paying attention during the entire press conference, an event that has now been “memed” into oblivion as "Chris Pine astral projecting." This was also the site of Styles allegedly spitting on Pine, although this event has been denied by representatives of both. This synopsis of events, though it hits the highlights, isn't even the full scope of the drama, but sadly this chain of events is more entertaining than the movie itself.
The most vexing thing about Don't Worry Darling is just how good it could have been and how important its themes still are. There are threads of a compelling story here, one about men gaslighting women, the debate over freedom versus safety, and antiquated gender roles. While the breadcrumbs are there, the themes of the movie feel lazy, like Wilde threw them in at the last second and said "I don't know, you figure it out." Many issues, such as female complacency in the patriarchy, survivor's guilt, and the dangers of nostalgia for a long lost time are also brought up in passing but never explored. You can't deny that the visuals are stunning, and Wilde has a real eye for lush cinematography, but motifs feel chosen at random. The plot drags for most of the movie, making it tempting to look up the Wikipedia synopsis and call it a day. The script has a few witty lines, mostly given to Bunny, but other than that is nothing extraordinary. The film asks so many questions and barely manages to answer a few, making it feel incomplete and unsatisfactory. Other than Alice and Jack, the characters seem muddled, doing things out of necessity for the plot instead of for any internal character-driven reason.
Photo Courtesy of IMDb
The performances are a mixed bag. Pugh is excellent as is to be expected, and most of the dramatic weight is thrust upon her shoulders. She allows the audience to get inside Alice's head, to be able to feel her pain, confusion, and betrayal. Her performance is one of the few things that keeps the movie afloat. Harry Styles does not manage to keep from sinking. His acting is atrocious and the rare moments when he does deliver is when he has Pugh to spar with. It’s impossible to tell if he’s trying to do an American accent or not until halfway through the movie when a character explicitly calls him British. Pine also phones it in as the film's antagonist Frank, whose motivations go unexplained. Some of the best performances are wasted on insignificant roles. Kiki Lane and Gemma Chan are amazing for the brief time they appear onscreen, even though their roles in the story seem superfluous. Nick Kroll is also very good in the small amount of screen time he is given. The film also gets famous burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese to cameo but for some reason cuts most of her dance routine. With a cast this famous, it can only be assumed that the fault lies with director Olivia Wilde, who pulls double duty as both actor and director. To be fair to Wilde, she does pull off the role of Bunny with a lot of charm. Perhaps this was too much for her to handle all at once or perhaps she isn't as talented a director as her debut film, 2019's Booksmart, would have you believe. In conclusion, I'd recommend giving this movie a pass and watching 1975's The Stepford Wives from the comfort of your own home instead. Or wait for it to come out on digital and make a drinking game out of it by taking a shot every time Harry Styles is a bad actor.