If I had to say one thing about my experience at the movie theater on Friday, September 23rd, it would be that it certainly felt like a movie.
The internet really attacked pop star, and now actor, Harry Styles, for describing his new movie Don’t Worry Darling like this, but after seeing the movie, I understand what he was saying. That is the only way to describe the experience of seeing this movie.
The anticipation for Don’t Worry Darling has been building for quite some time for Harry Styles fans. But, the real anticipation began among the drama at the Venice Film Festival. I will say that I definitely do not believe Harry Styles would spit on Chris Pine, but I am most certainly not here to write an article on the drama there.
I am here to write a review on Don’t Worry Darling, or at least, make an attempt to. Because frankly, it is very difficult to find the words to review that.
This article will contain spoilers, but I will start it off being as spoiler free as possible. I’ll put in a warning when I will be starting to discuss parts of the film that are shocking plot turns or moments, but if you want to be entirely shocked when you see it, I recommend skipping this article until after you see it.
A Drama Filled Cast
I’ll start with the star of the film: Miss Flo herself, Florence Pugh as Alice. The female protagonist lives in the suburbia hell-scape of Victory with her husband Jack Chambers (Harry Styles). But, Alice quickly becomes suspicious of this town she lives in. She has little memory of her life before, and questions how and why everything is so perfect. She questions her husband’s job, as he works for the Victory Project, but can not disclose his role. But her breaking point comes when a plane crash occurs, leading her to an extreme unraveling point, when she begins to have visions and flashbacks of her life before Victory. Pugh steals the show as one of the only members of the cast to sell her character perfectly, while much of the rest of the cast leaves much to be desired.
Unfortunately, Harry Styles does not give the performance many hoped he would, but does give the people what we would expect. In my experience on opening night of the movie, much of the theater laughed at his attempts to be extremely dramatic, but the most unbelievable part of the film came in his just about five minute long tap dancing scene.
Yes, you read that right. A tap dancing scene. In a psychological thriller.
This brings me to my most unfortunate problem with Don’t Worry Darling. The plot was great, but writer and director Olivia Wilde’s execution of the plot caused it to majorly crash and burn, with just an assortment of random scenes that don’t fully piece together or make sense together, as well as a good amount of scenes that definitely could have been cut.
But if there is one thing about me and my relationship with film, it’s that there is nothing I love more than a good plot twist. And damn, was this plot twist good.
Let’s Discuss That Plot Twist
(Here is where major spoilers will be discussed, so read at your own risk!)
There is a moment of darkness on screen, and suddenly we jump from our 1950s timeline to see Alice on an iPhone after leaving her shift as a surgeon in modern times. She goes home to a slightly disturbing version of Harry Styles, who has long hair and sits at his dual monitor computers, with one screen open on discord as he yells at his wife for not having made dinner, despite the fact she was just coming home from her 40 hour shift while he sat at home all day. This leads to the twist of the movie: the town of Victory, and the whole Victory project was just a simulation, made by men and for men trying to force women to be in relationships they no longer wanted to be part of against their will. To be honest, this plot twist sat with me and was frankly quite disturbing to me. This twist is definitely an attempt to comment on the power men have over women even today.
But there are still questions. What was the plane crash? What happened to Jack in the real world? What would happen to Alice if she did escape?
I could write a whole article dissecting the plots deep twists, but that would take up too much time. For this article I’m not going to go too much further into the plot, so there will be no more spoilers.
Final Thoughts
Overall, the movie has a really good plot and a really mind-bending plot twist. But getting to that twist had a significant amount of build up that felt unnecessary and only made the whole film much more confusing. It felt like a diet Jordan Peele movie, trying to have the same dark twist as Peele’s hit film Get Out. Many films try to replicate Peele’s masterpiece, but nothing ever will, and Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling most certainly will not.
One thing the film did achieve was sticking in the viewers mind. For days after seeing this movie, it was all I could think about, in both good and bad ways. Many scenes popped in my head and gave me chills thinking about, but many scenes also popped up and reminded me things they never fully resolved in the end.
Despite there being some plot holes, when we avoid comparing Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling to films of similar, yet more sophisticated nature, we have a deeply entertaining film with many exciting twists and turns, and many moments leaving the viewers extremely immersed.
In the end, this movie is not one that you can decide an opinion on without seeing it. I highly recommend seeing Don’t Worry Darling in theaters, and no matter what way it may be in, you will most definitely be entertained.