This article was written by Isabelle Pelozzo
As a singer, it was expected that since Harry Styles took Shia LaBeouf’s lead role in Olivia Wilde’s Don’t worry, Darling, he would become an easy target to the movie’s critics. We saw it before and, unfortunately, we’ll see it again.
Sold out stadium concerts, Grammy’s nominations – and wins -, and 12 years of career, Harry Styles is a well-known name in the music industry, but in the cinema, he is still a rookie. Don’t worry, Darling is not Style’s first appearance on the big screen, but he only starred in Christopher Nolan’s war movie Dunkirk, in a supporting role, as well in Marvel’s Eternals, directed by the Oscar Winner Chloe Zhao, just a few minutes.
When Rolling Stone released an exclusive sneaky peek of a fight scene between Jack Chambers, Harry’s character, and his wife Alice Chambers (Florence Pugh), the internet made it viral as proof of how bad the singer was at acting.
That happened in August, a month later the movie was released and we finally could watch the full performance of Styles in the psychological thriller.
The singer said his favorite part of the movie “is that it feels like a movie” and, yes, there are parts, such as the viral fight or the tiptop ones, where his acting feels like acting and gives the impression of someone trying to show naturalness but failing. The strength of Styles, however, easily appears in the chill scenes, where he has to give the audience a “more like him” performance, showing fun and charming Jack.
It is in the deeper ones, where we can see the actor working, though. That car scene for example, or the lost man he plays when the plot twist is revealed, shows great skills. He is excellent in the tricky mission of convincing the viewers of all the nuances of his character Jack and how his love for Alice and his selfishness can be mixed all of once.
Harry Styles is no expert, and clearly, some experience will do a lot of good for him, but his performance can be very structured during the movie. Overall it is a good performance, it needs a little bit of sharping, but it’s a problem that feels like it can be fixed easily with work. So, if you are still wondering if it makes sense to spend 2 hours in this thriller with Harry Styles as the lead role, you, don’t have to worry, darling.