Don't Worry Darling Review

For weeks before the release of Don't Worry Darling, Twitter was ablaze with the craziest gossip about the cast. It was said that director Olivia Wilde and lead actor Florence Pugh weren't on talking terms. That pop star Harry Styles and Chris Pine, both of whom have big roles in the movie, hated each other so much that Styles spit on Pine at the screening! Then they said Olivia and Harry were dating. Okay, this last one is in fact true. But when Wilde gave her beau the cold shoulder on a red carpet, fans just lost it. It was a publicist's worst nightmare ...or blessing. All that remained to be seen was whether the movie was worth the furore it created.

Set in an isolated experimental town called Victory Projects, Don't Worry Darling follows the picture-perfect lives of its hottest couple, Jack (Styles) and Alice (Pugh). Victory resembles a 1940s upper-class utopia, one where women wait by the door with a glass of whisky and a big smile for their work-weary husbands to come home. The daily routines of its residents are exquisitely choreographed. While the women stay home, cooking, cleaning and preening, the men go off to their top-secret jobs at a faraway hilltop accessible only by a car ride across a desert. The evenings are reserved for parties and intense love-making. The community's cultish leader, Frank (Pine), preaches control and symmetry as the antidote to the chaos of the outside world. But the veneer of perfection conceals a dark secret.

Don't Worry Darling's world feels like an amalgam of familiar dystopias. The regressive roles of women and the way troublemakers are carted off to therapy or "disappeared" is reminiscent of The Handmaid's Tale. Every object in this world, from the mid-century furnishings to the bacon strips and tropical fruit, is Victory-issued fare - a concept lifted from George Orwell's novel 1984 in which a totalitarian government maintains tight control over the "luxury" goods like coffee and cigarettes - with its own versions sold under the brand name "Victory"!

Even with such derivative themes, the movie takes its own sweet time to establish its world. When Alice begins to feel trapped and asks forbidden questions, we see the walls literally press in on her. As a visual metaphor for Victory's regimented life, the screenplay is sprinkled with cutaways of ballerinas dancing in tight symmetrical formations. In scene after scene, the same ideas are expounded, particularly through Frank and his wife (Gemma Chan) who talk in cryptic monologues about Victory's mission.

"Show, don't tell" is a cardinal rule of filmmaking, but Don't Worry Darling doesn't just show and tell but also ruminates and regurgitates the same cud over and over again. The audience is always two steps ahead of the drama. And what should have been the midway point is the climax.

Don't Worry Darling is Wilde's second collaboration with screenplay writer Katie Silberman, after their critically acclaimed (and Wilde's directorial debut) teenage coming-of-age film Booksmart. Katie, who also wrote the screenplay for the snappy rom-com Set It Up, is obviously skilled at the art of dialog. But here, her talents seem ill-suited to these stifled characters and their dollhouse universe. Only bits of Katie's signature style come through, like when Alice gossips with her charming neighbour, Bunny (Wilde).

Florence Pugh is the only reason to subject yourself to the tormenting pace of the screenplay. She is the centre of gravity keeping the movie from keeling over altogether. Chris Pine, with his piercing blue eyes and diamond-cut jawline, is an enigmatic Frank, but his dialogs are such mumbo-jumbo that it's hard to take him seriously.

The movie's production and costume design are Andersonian in their use of vibrant colours, dazzling patterns and an obsessive focus on symmetry. The rippling background score brings much of the suspense and intrigue that is missing from the writing.

The feeling of watching Don't Worry Darling circle around an audacious premise without ever actually saying anything bold is best captured in a viral video interview with Harry Styles. Styles is asked to describe the movie, to which he attempts to give a profound answer, but fails miserably. He says, "My favorite thing about the movie is that it feels like a ...movie. You know, like a real, go-to-the-theatre-like, film movie." Sitting beside Styles is Chris Pine, staring off into blank space, no doubt wishing he were somewhere else.