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Don't Worry Darling

Here's a film that's had more said about the bullshit around it than the film itself. Therefore, I'll try to keep it relevant. This is Olivia Wilde's second feature and she's a bit of a dab hand at this directing lark. I haven't seen her debut, Booksmart, but have heard good things. In a nutshell, Don't Worry Darling (errant comma notwithstanding) is a stylish, speculative drama, with a patina of utopia-cum-dystopia that masks something far more commonplace and unsettling. Florence Pugh is the dutiful 1950s hausfrau of Harry Styles, who live in a postcard perfect sunny, desert community, presumably near the West coast of the US. Styles' Jack works for Chris Pine's pseudo-cult leader, Frank, in a mysterious compound just out of the town of Victory. Pugh's Alice spends her days with other wives, shopping, practicing ballet or getting pissed up. All's going swimmingly until one of Alice's friends, Margaret (Kiki Layne), begins to ask questions and is summarily silenced.

The film starts out as a 1950s all-American dream but aside from the terror of this particular scenario in general (that 50s bright and cheery Americana cheese gives me the absolute shites), things are clearly askew. Alice breaks eggs that have nothing inside, she cleans a window wall that slowly begins to squeeze her like a sandwich press, there are mirror reflection errors like in those 'find the differences' pictures, and the plasticity of her friends has a whiff of the Stepford Wives. Frank's business involves 'modern materials' but there are hints of secret weapons manufacturing. It's a great premise and it mostly works, in large part thanks to Pugh's performance. She's got a very emotive face and she sells the paranoia really well. There's been a lot of grief for poor old Hazza but he's not terrible in this. The stuff about his accent is misguided - it's just a northern pom accent for the most part. Pine pulls some solid menace, he's well cast, and Wilde's Bunny has some of the best lines.

On balance, this is a watchable slice of psychosis-cinema, with good performances. It's not perfect - there's a slight unevenness in the plotting (I felt it could have done with more of the 'other' side and Pine needed a bit more fleshing out, as did the underused Gemma Chan as his wife), and the ending was a bit too ambiguous. But the realisation of the What in WTF!? is satisfying, and the theme of female disempowerment is important and timely. Avoid the circus around this and I reckon you'll get something out of it.

Don't Worry Darling opens October 6th.

See also:

The Black Mirror episode, San Junipero, written by Charlie Brooker and directed by Owen Harris (2016), WandaVision, directed by Matt Shakman (2021) and Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) all share some DNA with the above.

(Film stills and trailer ©Warner Brothers, 2022)

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