“Don’t Worry Darling” Review
Florence Pugh and Harry Styles star as a newly married 1950s couple whose existence isn’t as perfect as it appears on the surface in “Don’t Worry Darling,” the second film directed by Olivia Wilde.
Olivia Wilde made her directorial debut in 2019 with “Booksmart,” one of my favorite films of that year and one of my favorite comedies. Ever since then I’ve been eagerly awaiting her follow up film and that film has come at last with her sophomore effort “Don’t Worry Darling.” While many of the film’s qualities are admirable, the overall story was lacking in the originality that was promised to us.
Set in the 1950s, Alice (Florence Pugh) is living an idyllic life as a housewife in a company town while her husband Jack (Harry Styles) is working for the mysterious Victory Project. However, when Alice begins to have hallucinations and notice odd behavior, she begins to think that there’s something sinister behind the Victory Project and its enigmatic leader Frank (Chris Pine).
What really kept my interest throughout the entire film was Florence Pugh’s amazing performance. After making a big splash in the mainstream following her 2019 films “Fighting With My Family,” “Midsommar” and “Little Women,” she has quickly established herself as a talented actor. In “Don’t Worry Darling,” she gives an exceptionally vulnerable portrayal of someone who’s completely in the dark and trying to figure out the truth behind this seemingly perfect world. While Pugh was nominated for an Oscar for her work on “Little Women,” I think this might result in a second nomination.
Surprising me with his acting, Harry Styles delivers a solid performance as a conflicted man having to choose between his wife’s well-being and his position with this secretive project. While Harry Styles has acted in the past with films like “Dunkirk” and “Eternals,” the former emphasized physical acting over dialogue and the latter was a post-credits sequence so it was hard to gauge him as an actor. In this film, his performance is layered and ranges from warm and intimate to cold and calculating.
Chris Pine manages to stand out in a supporting cast filled with talent like Olivia Wilde, Nick Kroll and Gemma Chan by absolutely relishing his role as the mysterious antagonist whose ideals clash with Alice’s. Pine is clearly having a good time with this role and his chilling performance makes for an interesting villain.
In terms of atmosphere, every technical department clearly worked overtime to make the best looking film they could. The production design, costumes, music and cinematography all come together to make a film that you can’t look away from. Matthew Libatique’s eye behind the camera and Wilde’s direction make for a film with imagery that I won’t be forgetting for a while.
Unfortunately, the film’s biggest issue is a rather big one and is, no doubt, responsible for the mixed reviews that the film has been receiving and that is the film’s screenplay. While Katie Silberman is a talented writer, having co-written “Booksmart,” the story’s weakness concerns its twist and the underlying motivation behind this community.
The entire film is about Alice trying to figure out what’s going on and why she's seeing all of these strange things. However, if you’re familiar with this kind of premise, you can correctly guess what the twist is in the first 15 minutes. It’s not terrible and you do want to see Alice figure it out but it’s been done several times before. It’s not as original as I would have hoped, which makes it less memorable.
While I had high hopes for this film and was expecting it to be one of this year’s best, instead I got a serviceable film with truly outstanding acting and a memorable atmosphere. What the film has to say underneath all of its 50s glamor is fascinating but it’s being delivered in a vessel that we’ve seen before.
