Movie Details
Movie: Don’t Worry Darling(2022)
Director: Olivia Wilde
Cast: Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, and Chris Pine
Movie Type: Thriller/Mystery
Release date: 30 September 2022
IMDB Rating: 6.3
Languages: English, Spanish (Latin America),
Duration: 2h 30m
Trailer
Synopsis
From the very first trailer, it was clear that Olivia Wilde’s new film would be far more ambitious than her first film, bizarrely translated into Czech. Here we watched the luxurious cast led by Florence Pugh, Chris Pine, and Harry Styles in perfect 1950s backdrops, the status of women and men screamed Stepford wives, the almost too fairytale life for a change reminded us of the iconic Truman Show, and the visual attractions of a utopian desert town the work of Christopher Nolan. However, the first reaction from the festivals quickly cooled our expectations, and before the screening, we could only hope that the promising, albeit mired in controversy, the director managed to come up with at least a solid contribution to the genre of reality-bending science fiction.
And I can already tell you that it worked. Nothing, dear, is, if nothing else, an impressively filmed, soundtracked, and, despite the speculations surrounding a certain singer/actor, also acted film, whose beauty flaws somewhat dampen the overall audience impression, but they are certainly not an obstacle for people like they thoroughly enjoyed the experience in the cinema.
The film tells the story of a young couple in love, Alice and Jack (Pugh and Styles), who live in the 1950s in the small town of Victory, which is surrounded by many secrets. For example, where do all the men leave every morning, what is the content of their work, or where did the charismatic Frank (Chris Pine), the quirky head of all the employees of the Victory project, come from and what does he do?
The film then, despite my expectations – or I’m worried – gradually gives answers to all questions with more or less success. But it happens especially during the first half, when we only get to know the daily routine of the beautiful Alice, played by the irritatingly sexy Pugh, we watch her pamper her husband, how she has fun with her friends, and generally penetrate the relationships and rules of the city of Victory when the viewer has a lot of fun. However, as time goes on, suspicious cracks inevitably appear in the perfect reality. Small details gradually become bigger and bigger problems, which eventually sends the central heroine on a dangerous and spiraling path to uncover the true background of the Victory project and, in fact, the main motive of the entire film.
Of course, we have similarly complicated paranoid thrillers here relatively often. To the director’s credit, however, it must be said that her film holds tightly together the whole time and the narrative never falls apart. The solid audiovisual feasts, which include all kinds of opulent parties, sexual relations, or finally the psychotic states of certain characters, also raise it far above the waters of the average. The soundtrack may not be ideal for standalone listening, but I guarantee you’ll be humming the tunes from the film the next day.
The problem is once again the script, when, especially in the final third of the film, the characters are suddenly more subject to what the plot demands of them, and not to what would correspond to their nature. The message, which until then was quite clearly legible between the lines, suddenly starts to fill the viewer with all literalness. There are completely unnecessary moments and certain deaths that are there just so someone can say something wannabe feminist, and instead of the ending feeling like the icing on an otherwise delicious cake, you leave with a bitter taste on your tongue. And that is a great pity considering the previous brilliantly built story.
The performances by Pugh and Pine are, however, stellar. The British actress, in particular, is a clear force here, in which love and loyalty are mixed with curiosity and defiance. Her Alice uses rationality and foresight, but she also lacks fear and sensitivity, which make her a believable heroine who is easy to root for. Pine, although he didn’t get much space, then enjoyed his villain to the fullest and I feel that the older he gets, the better he is. As for the whole drama surrounding LaBeouf and Styles, I’m on the fence, because at first glance the well-known singer fits into this fifties retro more than the stormtrooper Shia, but in those few stronger and more dramatic moments the star of Fragments of a Woman or Iron Hearts would play undoubtedly better. Anyway, Styles did his job for me.
Olivia Wilde’s new movie is a good thing, which suits the big screen as well as Jordan Peele’s recent movies, for example. At the same time, both filmmakers have a bit of a problem with the fact that their work is not always as clever as they would probably like.
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