Directed by:
Olivia WildeCinematography:
Matthew LibatiqueComposer:
John PowellCast:
Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Olivia Wilde, Chris Pine, Gemma Chan, Nick Kroll, Douglas Smith, KiKi Layne, Timothy Simons, Kate Berlant, Dita Von Teese, Asif Ali (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack (Harry Styles) are lucky to be living in the idealized community of Victory, the experimental company town housing the men who work for the top-secret Victory Project and their families. The 1950’s societal optimism espoused by their CEO, Frank (Chris Pine)—equal parts corporate visionary and motivational life coach—anchors every aspect of daily life in the tight-knit desert utopia. While the husbands spend every day inside the Victory Project Headquarters, working on the “development of progressive materials,” their wives—including Frank’s elegant partner, Shelley (Gemma Chan)—get to spend their time enjoying the beauty, luxury and debauchery of their community. Life is perfect, with every resident’s needs met by the company. All they ask in return is discretion and unquestioning commitment to the Victory cause. But when cracks in their idyllic life begin to appear, exposing flashes of something much more sinister lurking beneath the attractive façade, Alice can’t help questioning exactly what they’re doing in Victory, and why. Just how much is Alice willing to lose to expose what’s really going on in this paradise? (Warner Bros. US)
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Reviews (11)
Don’t Worry Darling would have a lot more power as a (shorter, for God's sake) episode of Black Mirror. As it is, it's an overlong and quite easy to see through metaphor, pulled off by the wonderful Florence Pugh. Thanks to her, thanks to Olivia Wilde's direction and thanks to the beautifully kitschy production design, the two hours pass quite briskly, and it doesn't matter so much that the ending doesn't have a great twist.
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An atmospheric relationship drama with interesting performances. Unfortunately, the script is as dodgy as the leading lady's memory. Spending an hour and a half portraying the world and having the interesting, supporting stuff taken away in a moment is the most frustrating part. The motifs of the relationship between men and women in contemporary society are stripped away, killed without proper context. The behaviour of some of the characters is downright baffling. Chris Pine and his departure was supposed to mean what? But Florence Pugh does a great job, and even the bumbling Harry Styles is a sight to behold. Olivia Wilde's brilliant direction saves much of the film, but the crumbling story at the ending trip her up. The visuals are great, though. A more assured script next time and it'll work out. John Powell's score is superb.
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Olivia Wilde and her ambitious psychological thriller evoking The Stepford Wives should have been the gem of the year, but it's just a decent genre flick. The setting in the 1950s is very nice, the utopian experimental community is an attractive subject, Florence Pugh is both sexy and a great actress, and there's a nice final twist with Chris Pine that has something to it, but somehow I was expecting more. When best scene in thriller is Pugh's oral sex on a table doesn't feel enough to me. I found the whole film to be a little too restrained. There is no violence, no proper escalation of the situation. The trailer made me expect downright mind fuck scenes playing with the viewer's mind, shocking and fascinating at the same time and unfortunately Olivia fails to do that. I probably had too high expectations, but it's not a bad film, it's definitely worth seeing, I wasn't bored, there are bright moments and strong performances, and the visuals and atmosphere are also very good. In the cinema it might have enhanced the experience to a stronger rating,at home only for a strong 3 stars. 65%.
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A pastel femme matrix. It’s fine that the poster entices viewers to a sweet romance with Harry Styles. Surprised female viewers will get a more sophisticated thriller metaphor for endless inner discontent and the utopian illusion of the “perfect life”. For a second directorial feature of Olivia Wilde, Don’t Worry Darling is a highly ambitious work relying on excellent artists in the filmmaking crew (cinematographer, editor, composer). Florence Pugh heads up the acting, Styles carries the romance, and it’s very nice to watch. Only the point that it makes isn’t in any way original; it’s actually not even appropriate. And in the final build-up, it all somehow falls apart both in the connections and in the emotional experience.
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The stolen pile of civilian genre short stories so committed to tricking you that it refuses to answer its own questions. In the first one, there are so many dead ends and vanities that go nowhere that I didn't want to believe until the last second that Olivia Wilde actually wanted to build her entire universe on a single twist. My rating leans mostly on the divine talent of Florence Pugh, who with nothing more than a raised voice or a slight grimace completely wipes the floor with the vainly screaming Harry Styles or the carefree Chris Pine. The direction and the visuals are almost unjustifiably confident, which blurs a few unnecessary lines in the final impression, but the most visible ones (the airplane, the earthquake) cannot be ignored. 50%
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