Don’t Worry Darling is a mash-up of borrowed ideas

Don’t Worry Darling has been all over the media for all the wrong reasons over the last few weeks and we were totally locked in for the drama. The Venice International Film Festival premiere saw various internet theories and memes flying around including: cast spats (or should I say spits), Harry Styles’ relationship with director Olivia Wilde, Shai LaBeouf’s exit from the production and Chris Pines’s vacant stare at the press conference. The reviews for the film have also been underwhelming so what is this month’s most talked about movie actually like?

The psychological thriller is set in a 1950’s California town called Victory, an isolated but seemingly perfect community in the desert. We follow housewife Alice (Florence Pugh) living happily ever after with her husband Jack (Harry Styles). He works, she cleans and cooks, but they mostly ignore the perfectly presented dinners to get straight down to sexy time each evening.

The town and its land are owned by the Victory Project, headed up by Frank (Chris Pine) also Jack’s employer, and we learn they’re working on top secret engineering projects which cause regular rumbles and quakes. Within the sparse dry landscape, Victory is an oasis of Stepford wifeness and the American dream. 

It’s not long before the glaze starts to crack and Alice begins tumbling down the rabbit hole questioning the reality of her all too perfect life. There’s a Get Out style moment early on from Alice’s friend Margaret (Kiki Layne). She breaks character from the standard dutiful wife and in a detached demeanour (not unlike Pine’s Venice expression), asks the hard questions like, ‘why are we here?”. This serves as the catalyst to Alice’s own discoveries of their world and sets her on the path of weird hallucinations and uncomfortable dinner parties.

Where do I start? Overall, I did not love this film. I felt that it failed to do any of the things that make a film enjoyable. It’s not anywhere near as clever as it thinks it is and is frustratingly paced and surprisingly boring. 

One of the big issues with the film is a total lack of tension which is needed to carry a story like this forward. There was also a lack of strong identity in the world in which the action is placed. 

The soundtrack was trying extremely hard to create all the things lacking elsewhere but it does not succeed. Alongside some catchy but obvious 50s American pop, the intrusive score’s intense background build-up music huffed amongst uncomfortably irregular sounds and grating violins. It’s there to unsettle us but is so overused it just irritated. This backing track was screaming at us throughout to, ”watch out!” or ” look over there!” or  “ohhh what’s going on here?” etc, so there’s a total lack of subtlety or teasing.

The script fails to bring the characters to life in any meaningful way so they’re rather dull and flat – except for Alice. Florence Pugh is very watchable, and easily out acts the rest of the cast giving a great performance within an otherwise static environment. She’s the reason you’ll see it through to the end. But, there’s no saving Don’t Worry Darling, and despite the desperation and peril of Alice, I never felt an ounce of fear or discomfort.

The other stars in the film aren’t necessarily giving bad performances but their characters don’t deliver enough for you to care about them. It’s all a bit meh. Harry Styles is fine as Jack but is heavily overshadowed by Pugh, Chris Pine is ok as Frank, Gemma Chan has little to deliver as Frank’s wife Shelly, and Olivia Wilde as Bunny, Alice’s best friend, is the walking advert for toeing the line of Victory.

I was disappointed considering Wilde’s directorial debut Booksmart was so successfully executed, the star power of the cast and the intriguing trailer. I was expecting more complex characterisations and a playful, intelligent and mischievous script. If I was picking highlights, I enjoyed the initial opening and introduction to Victory and the more exciting action sequences near the end. The film’s cinematography by Matthew Libatique means the film is extremely well presented but it’s just a shame the content doesn’t match its visual ambitions.

The film is packed with clichés and obvious influences from movies like The Stepford Wives, Get Out, Rosemary’s Baby and One Night in Soho, but it doesn’t come together to form an engrossing plot or invigorating ride for the audience but rather a mash-up of borrowed ideas.

Don’t Worry Darling is out in cinemas from 6 October.

2 stars

Reviewed by Ingrid Grenar.

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