SPOILERS FOR DON’T WORRY DARLING AHEAD
If you are a Harry Styles fan like me, or even just like to keep up on celebrity news, you must be informed on all of the Don’t Worry Darling drama. Do Olivia Wilde and Florence Pugh hate each other? Do we think Harry Styles actually spit on Chris Pine? Did Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde break up?
While some of our questions have been answered – Harry Styles actually did not spit on Chris Pine and Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde appear to still be together – some are still left unanswered. When Olivia Wilde was asked why Florence Pugh was not with the rest of the crew answering questions from journalists, she avoided the question claiming she would not fuel the internet, as it already does that on its own. Despite all of these answered and unanswered questions, one important question remains: was the messiness of this movie really worth the end result? That’s what I am here to answer.
I recently went to go see the screening of the new movie, Don’t Worry Darling, with little hope after seeing the critic’s ratings at 38% percent. But let me tell you, this psychological thriller had me at the edge of my seat the entire movie. Set in an experimental “1950s” utopian atmosphere where women stay home to do the cooking and house cleaning and then spend the remainder of their day by the pool with their friends sipping on a nice cold alcoholic drink, the men go to work for the “Victory Project”- but what they do exactly, nobody knows.
Lead characters, Jack Chambers (Harry Styles) and Alice Chambers (Florence Pugh) have a seemingly perfect relationship—they dance together, they joke around with each other, and they are excited to see each other after a long day of work. However, as the movie progresses, Alice begins having disturbing visions and she begins to question the Victory Project and exactly what the men do every day when they go to work. Alice begins to come closer and closer to the truth—that is until her husband calls the men working for the Victory Project to “fix her” because, as described, she was obviously having an emotional breakdown and was crazy.
After being “fixed,” which really just meant her being electrically shocked over and over until her brain forgot her visions and what she had learned, she went back to her normal day-to-day life, drinking with her friend Bunny and cleaning the house. However, it’s not until Jack puts on the song “With You All the Time” and begins singing it that Alice immediately begins having flashbacks where she’s in scrubs and coming home from a long day at the hospital. Jack is waiting for her at home, watching Frank, the leader of the Victory Project, complaining that she is late and has been at work all day. She snaps back saying since Jack isn’t working she has to pick up the slack so they can pay the bills. Now we see Jack, not looking like the Jack that we know (and maybe embarrassingly, love). He walks into his room and we see Alice laying on the bed, body strapped in completely still with a device on her eyes — it was all a simulation.
Alice snaps back into the simulation and starts screaming at Jack and telling him he is psychotic. Jack comes to his knees holding on to Alice for dear life, begging her to realize how good they have it compared to reality. Alice tries to run away, but Jack just pulls tighter. Leaving Alice with no choice, she hits Jack in the head with a glass, killing him both in the simulation and in real life. Bunny comes in and sees what happens and urges Alice that she needs to leave now before the Victory workers find out what happened. She tells Alice that she knew all along but decided to stay here because her kids were in the simulation.
As Alice is rushing to the headquarters to leave the simulation, the Victory workers come speeding after her, and in a race to the headquarters, Alice manages to escape the workers and make it to the headquarters. She places her hands on the glass and…the movie stops with the sound of her taking a deep breath.
The audience is left with a million questions, does she get back to the real world? Is she able to fully escape? What happens to Victory? And so many more questions are left unanswered. But, I guess that is the point the audience is supposed to be left confused and uneasy. Whatever the viewers feel, I would say that without a doubt in my mind Don’t Worry Darling was very much so worth all of the drama and if you haven’t seen it yet, run to your nearest movie theater.
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