Don’t Worry Darling is The Stepford Wives on acid with a shot of Busby Berkeley as a chaser. Whatever issues star Florence Pugh and director/co-star Olivia Wilde had off-screen, both absolutely nail it onscreen. Pugh pulls off a performance that legitimately earns the accolade of elevating material just by her presence.
Remember when women didn’t know better than to smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish while pregnant? Remember when women dressed to the nines just to stay home and dust? No? Neither do I. However, that’s the throwback world the characters inhabit when they’re introduced in Don’t Worry Darling.
The setting is the ’50s in the idyllic company town of Victory, California. All the men who reside in Victory work for a company run by a Svengali named Jack (played by Chris Pine). All the women cook, clean, shop, and take dance classes.
Wives do not work in Victory. They also do not ask questions, and no one ever leaves town under any circumstances.
Every aspect of their lives feels staged, orchestrated, and manipulated. Yet the women are content exchanging gossip, whipping up delicious meals, and servicing their husbands in the bedroom. (This is a sexed-up version of The Stepford Wives.)
It’s hinted that the work being done by the nine-to-fivers has to do with developing weapons. But if so, the wives are oblivious and only hope their hubbies continue to earn promotions from Jack.
Jack, meanwhile, likes to wax philosophical. He urges the citizens of his cozy little community to tap into their unbridled potential, emphasizing that chaos is the foe of innovation. He assures his flock of feckless sheep that they’re changing the world.
But how? Why? And what’s with the warning sign posted on Victory’s in-town trolley? It has a distinctly Vegas “what happens here, stays here” vibe but reads much more ominously.
Weird, disjointed visions of a different life invade Alice Chambers’ head as she attempts to go about her daily life of being the best wife she can be. Alice tries to push these intrusive thoughts away but fails. And she’s not the only wife who thinks there’s something freaky going on in Victory. Alice’s neighbor, Margaret (KiKi Layne), is the first among the close-knit friends to experience a disconnect with her structured daily life.
Alice’s handsome husband – and the only Brit of the bunch – Jack (Harry Styles), provides emotional support and a shoulder to lean on as she tries to reconcile what she’s seeing in her head and what she’s told is reality.
As Alice’s detachment advances, cracks appear in Victory’s perfect little social order.
I couldn’t care less about who said what when and what the hell was going on behind the scenes. What happened between the stars and the director isn’t on the screen. That’s what matters. The shenanigans taking place during filming are fodder for tabloids and clickbait headlines. That turmoil, if it existed, is never visible onscreen.
Florence Pugh’s Alice goes from vivacious and fun to vulnerable and quite possibly psychotic. There’s a lot of juicy territory for Pugh to cover and every choice she makes, every little nuance or head tilt, effectively communicates the swarm of mangled thoughts flowing through Alice’s brain.
Harry Styles does a good job of infusing Jack with a sort of naivete and earnestness in the first two acts that helps the twist in the third act work. Pugh and Styles have enough chemistry to sell the relationship. However, it’s a little hard to accept Pugh’s Alice ever being a follower to Charlie as the leader, which screws with the relationship’s dynamic. Fortunately, that weird juxtaposition is ultimately explained by the film’s end.
The supporting cast – Chris Pine, KiKi Layne, Gemma Chan, Nick Kroll, Kate Berlant, and Wilde – wander in and out of the story, basically serving to provide a backdrop for Florence Pugh and Harry Styles’ characters to bounce off. They’re all terrific, especially Pine, who doesn’t often get to channel his charming persona into such a twisted, narcissistic character.
Olivia Wilde proves Booksmart wasn’t a fluke and that her skill as a director is the real deal. And Don’t Worry Darling is one of the most beautiful films of 2022. The lighting and sets are sumptuous, and the costumes are just stunning. Enough can not be said of cinematographer’s Matthew Libatique work; so much of what we need to know about Victory is communicated through his exquisite lensing.
The third act is, to put it bluntly, messy. If ever a film cried out to be a limited series, it’s Don’t Worry Darling. Audiences who don’t mind not having all their questions answered will embrace how screenwriter Katie Silberman wraps up this bizarre mystery. I don’t mind being left to guess how certain elements of day-to-day life in Victory actually worked, but it’s a legitimate complaint to say the ending doesn’t live up to the setup.
Still, Don’t Worry Darling is so loaded with outstanding performances that being left to do some of the heavy lifting at the end is a small price to pay.
GRADE: B
MPAA Rating: R for sexuality, language, and violent content
Release Date: September 23, 2022
Running Time: 2 hours 3 minutes
Studio: New Line Cinema
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