Don't Worry Darling: Review - Don't Watch This!

Never have I seen a movie so incompetent. The movie may deserve praise though, for stretching a non existent plot past two hours with it’s vapid dialogue and pointless scenes. I have seen hundreds of films and many of them bad, but the one thing that irks me more than anything is feeling that my time has been wasted which is how I felt once the credits of this dumpster fire started to roll. While I can understand the interest in seeing this movie based on the tumultuous publicity tour that led up to its release with much of the tabloid drama originating from the director Olivia Wilde these real world scandals far outweigh any entertainment value that could be gained from watching this insipid trainwreck.

Perhaps the harshest criticism of this movie that I could give is that you could start it at any moment in the runtime and not miss a single thing. Nothing happens, the characters learn zilch, not one memorable thing occurs. Perhaps this is the movie you can stare at and notice something looking back at you. I’m reminded of the scene in Adaptation where Nicolas Cage attends a screenwriting seminar and asks the lecturer about the merits of a film where the characters remain static throughout never learning a thing or experiencing anything consequential which is a question born out of Cage’s neurotic nihilism. In response to this question Brian Cox lists the myriad of monumental things that occur each day and the way people are transformed by these events thus diminishing Cage’s question and the validity of a story where nothing happens on the basis of such a plot being the opposite of the human experience.

It is possible that Don’t Worry Darling failed to capture a single insight into humanity or have a single moment stand out from the sprawl of nonsense since so much of the plot felt as though it had been plagiarized from other movies and forced into this Frankenstein’s monster of a film. Copying work without understanding it could be the reason none of this made sense or was given a proper explanation as the director did not understand the motivations behind others work. The movie tries, I think, to put forward some question about society and gender norms. However, this poor attempt at trying to comment on certain sexist ideals in a patriarchal society were never fully investigated and came off as more of an SNL sketch set during the nuclear family era than a meaningful discussion of societal norms and mores. Not to mention the concept of a woman being trapped in a world with such absurdly out of date and sexist ideals for how women ought to be was done better in the much overlooked film Held (2020) where a women is trapped in a house and forced to buy into the idea of being a subservient wife based such out of date patriarchal standards.

One of the reasons these ideas never felt tangible or consequential may have been due to the awful world building. Setting a film in an absurd version of reality where the main character is unaware of its outlandishness has been done before and done well such as in The Truman Show or Under the Silver Lake. What these films did differently is that both took steps to slowly reveal to the main character the true nature of their surroundings whereas Don’t Worry Darling did none of this and instead resorted to simply painting the real world and fantastical one as polar opposites such that the main character never goes on a journey of discovery but rather oscillates between complete ignorance and total awareness. Florence Pugh should have won an Oscar for this film. Based on the cliched plot and none existent character arcs one struggles to fathom how Pugh was still able to give a captivating and emotionally nuanced performance. She is a phenomenal actress, what a talent.

Were there other actors in this film? I’m honestly struggling to remember a single thing anyone else did in this movie. Harry Styles has some intimate scenes, mumbles some nothing lines, and briefly turns into an incel but in costume only. Again, the rise of incel culture is a serious topic worthy of being interrogated in a film such as this focused on gender roles in the 21st century. However, instead of showing how one may become susceptible to these awful ideas and become embroiled in a dark web of negative thought Olivia Wilde resorted to simply showing Styles be out of work and cling to his computer, no better explanation is given into how the main villain of the film resorted to this dark subculture and a life of crime.

Chris Pine is also present in the film though I am not sure if he started a podcast or a shampoo line. But in all seriousness, casting one of the most charismatic and likable actors in a role where he is to be the mastermind of a cult of incels could have worked, but it never clicked since we never see Pine spouting any of these awful ideas and thus never understand how he came to wield so much social power. Furthermore, much of Pine’s scenes occur in the fantasy world where he appears to be the leader of the home owners association rather than a cult like leader of lonely and desperate men.

Olivia Wilde does her best Joan Crawford impression here with her aggressive attempt at trying to portray a character years younger than her actual age. That is not to criticize her for her looks or her age but to comment on the fact that her performance came across as painfully forced in that her outfits and character seemed to be incredibly immature and associating with people much younger than she actually is which was hard to take seriously. Given how bad this film was its incredible to think there is real argument to be made as to whether Wilde is a worse actress or director.

No one should watch this unless they want to see Florence Pugh act convincingly while surrounded by a rabble of incompetence which is all captured in nauseating cinematography that insisted on spinning endlessly in one pool party scene for no particular reason again pointing to a lack of adeptness in the director’s chair.

There may be movies worse than this, but I honestly cannot think of one.

Instead of showing the trailer for Don't Worry Darling, here is the trailer for Pleasantville (1998) which is a much better film about characters stuck between here and fantasy which also touches on changing societal and moral standards between time periods.