Don’t Worry Darling — Magnificent Mystery
The streak continues. The professional journalists are at it again! I just love how these rotten tomatoes scores are looking these days. Any time you get a good story with well written characters without any wokeness or political agenda, the so-called professional movie critics bash it. It’s like they’re allergic to good story telling. But the people are wising up. We’re voting with our wallets and it’s starting to show. So far this year we’ve gotten great films panned by the critics and we’re looking at a strong finish. Don’t Worry Darling is the latest film from Olivia Wilde who’s directed some quirky and nuanced films. It’s hard to talk about the film reasonably and responsibly because the film gets much of its meaning from the plot twist near the end. It’s a great mystery thriller that shouldn’t be spoiled so I’ll provide no spoilers. Let’s get to it, shall we?
The movie, set mainly in California in what appears to be the late nineteen-fifties, makes extraordinary use of production design, dramatic staging, and narrative details, in order to taint its own realism and render the action eerie, uncanny, elusive. The movie begins with showing the town of Victory, a picturesque town with vivid scenery and cookie cutter people.
Florence Pugh plays Alice Chambers, one of a group of women living in Victory, a planned community established in a remote part of the California desert. Her husband, Jack played by Harry Styles, like all the husbands of all the women she knows, works for the seemingly defense-related Victory Project, which, like the town itself, is built and run by a sunshiny, charismatic man named Frank played by Chris Pine.
But throughout the film, something seems off, starting with the town’s weird uniformity. At the cul-de-sac where the Chambers family and their neighbors live, Jack and the other men, including Dean played by Nick Kroll and Pete played by Asif Ali, pull out of their driveways at exactly the same time each morning, seen off identically by their wives, Alice, Bunny played by Olivia Wilde, and Peg played by Kate Berlant, and then flow into the desert with other cars of other men driving to the same workplace, somewhere amid the nearby mountains.
As the story unfolds, we learn more about the town and its people. The uniformity of the town has strong hints of authoritarianism and rah-rah patriotism of the 1950’s but in a weird, creepy way. Women don’t work, they’re not allowed to drive, only going shopping and to a ballet class. Subtle details throughout the film suggest themes of control and order which end up backfiring when one of the women kills herself. Alice witnesses the suicide yet is told that she imagined it. The further into the story we get, the more of these weird occurrences Alice sees and has a hard time processing them. As the film reaches its crescendo, the tension rises to reveal the major plot twist which is shown in a short flashback where everything is revealed and Alice must work to save herself.
Florence Pugh really got to shine in this film. She plays the character of Alice perfectly. As the story unraveled for Alice, it also unraveled for the audience. We were learning at the same pace as Alice what the world of the film was like. We saw her daily struggles and through them we learned more about the world. Through these struggles, we learned the rules of this world and its inconsistencies. There was one scene where Alice sees a plane crashing but no one batted an eye and made her feel crazy when in fact it was one of these rule inconsistencies coming through.
Harry Styles played the character a bit weakly, aloof, and goofy. Jack’s motivations were pretty selfish throughout the film. Not only was he being entirely unreasonable with his demands on Alice, but also his character lacked any sort of depth, basically being one dimensional. He wanted the wife to cook and clean at home while he toiled away at a job he hated to keep them trapped in that life. Yet if he had only worked on himself, making himself happy and fulfilled, he could’ve had a much richer marriage. But through his selfish actions, he lost everything he seemingly held dear.
It’s been a while since we’ve gotten a well written female character. Alice doesn’t start out as the omniscient and infallible Mary Sue characters we’ve been getting for the past decade. She starts out as an innocent housewife who begins to suspect her husband isn’t who he says he is. She slowly starts to piece things together through her curiosity and ingenuity which allows her to grow as a character. We haven’t gotten female characters written like this in quite some time and it’s a breath of fresh air to finally get what audiences have been clamoring for which shows through the audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes for this film.
Olivia Wilde is emerging as one of the most talented new directors in Hollywood today. Her direction of the movie was multi-layered and nuanced. The world building in Don’t Worry Darling was done with a great level of care and detail. Each scene ratcheted up the tension for both the characters and the audience, intensifying the mystery without revealing everything at once. The audience grew along with the character of Alice as we all found out more of what was really going on. It actually reminded me a lot of the old Alfred Hitchcock films from the 50s and 60s. Olivia Wilde, like Hitchcock, increased the tension to engage the audience on a deeper level making them more invested in the outcome. She also didn’t throw in any woke agenda or political messaging, only focusing on character development and world building which created a much richer experience and fantastic final payoff.
Overall, Don’t Worry Darling is a phenomenal mystery of a film in the same vein as old Hitchcock thrillers. The story was very well crafted with various layers to peel back and details to notice. The twisty and windy plot make this a great mystery thriller to watch and unravel. The film’s setting and design are spectacularly stylish. The acting out of Florence Pugh was stellar and I, for one, can’t wait to see her lead in more movies. Olivia Wilde is an up and coming director to watch that has a chance to go down as one of the greats. Though the film was mired in the controversy between Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles, one shouldn’t overlook it. This is a great movie to get you back in theaters and I highly suggest going to see this film!
If you like this review, check out the video review on youtube: