‘Don’t Worry Darling’ Review: A Nightmare Dollhouse Come to Life
A Totally Reel Review
Rate It Out of Eight:
5/8
It’s nearly impossible to walk into a screening of Don’t Worry Darling without hearing about the online drama these past few months. If you haven’t heard about it, here’s a 1 minute summary for those blissfully ignorant of the Twitter and TikTok-fueled drama. For weeks leading up to the actual release of the film, the combination of bad press, poor reviews from critics, and “Miss Flo’s” notable absences, has been plaguing Olivia Wilde. Despite (or perhaps because of) the controversy, the movie premiered at #1 in box office even as Avatar and Spider-Man: No Way Home are trying to hold on to their box office records with re-releases.
Having seen this movie, I find a lot of the questions regarding Olivia Wilde’s competence as a director to be overblown and exaggerated. The costumes, sets, cinematography, and sound all immerse you into the world of the 1950s suburban paradise. Florence Pugh even makes being a housewife look good. There are intriguing ideas and important themes that have so much potential, but sadly the execution falls flat. The movie is stylish, but weirdly paced — spending way too long on lingering shots of the California desert, black and white synchronized swimmers, and an unnecessary Harry Styles dance break. It rushes the ending, almost like it knows that the reveal doesn’t adequately answer all the questions the movie raises. For a psychological thriller, it wasn’t very thrilling.
Florence Pugh and Friends, feat. Chris Pine
To no one’s surprise, Florence Pugh was the highlight of this film. It’s heavily centered around her character, Alice, a suburban housewife who starts to notice strange things happening in her neighborhood and falls down a rabbit hole. There are a couple minor characters like her husband Jack (Harry Styles) who doesn’t do much other than go down on her, her gossip-loving neighbor Bunny (Olivia Wilde), and Frank (Chris Pine), the brain behind the Victory Project. None of the other characters get fleshed out much, they’re just one-dimensional, stereotypical housewives who look pretty and wait for their husbands to come home. As such, the movie depends heavily on Florence and her performance is top-notch as usual.
Chris Pine also deserves an honorable mention for his portrayal of Frank, a charismatic, calculated antagonist. His behavior is outwardly inviting and friendly but there’s a sinister undercurrent to his performance. As Olivia Wilde described: “the most terrifying and the most powerful way to play this character was to do it very quietly.” Powerful people, and especially powerful men, do not raise their voices. Very early in the film, we hear Alice and Jack talk about Frank as this person to be impressed and we hear other characters discuss him in revered tones. Even in ballet classes, we sneak a peek of his framed photo on the wall, staring down at the dancers. These glimpses of Frank build him up as a mysterious yet omnipotent leader who controls the carefully engineered details of the Victory Project suburbs, long before we even see him on screen. For the first hour and a half, the movie felt like a glamorized suburban 1984 with Chris Pine as Big Brother.
There is beauty in control, grace in symmetry. We move as one.
A Glamorized Stepford Wives Reboot
For those who haven’t seen the movie and want to avoid spoilers about the big reveal, please skip to Style Over Substance, Star Power Over Talent.
Frank is driven by his need for total control. He leaves nothing up to chance and meticulously plans every detail of the Victory Project suburbs, conveniently leaving the women helpless and dependent on their husbands. They’re programmed to forget how to drive and use a trolley that drives along a predetermined route. Anyone who’s lived in the suburbs knows how hard it is to navigate without a car. The husbands are calling the shots, dressing up the women like Barbie dolls in the simulation, moving them around their perfect little doll houses. During the gala, the Dollhouse Brass Band plays for everyone as Jack dances around mechanically, like a puppet on a string. That entire scene felt like a giant metaphor for the Victory Project. Olivia Wilde should’ve cut that entire scene of Harry Styles dancing, he looked like a monkey wind-up toy.
What is the enemy of progress? Chaos.
Even kids are weaponized as a tool to keep women in check — Margaret’s son is taken away from her in retaliation for getting too close to headquarters and Bunny’s children are the reason she willingly stays in the simulation. It’s not a coincidence that Jack proposes trying for a kid after Alice starts acting out, another way to distract her. This movie feels like a reboot of the Stepford Wives with The Matrix mixed in. Or a feminist, “yassified” version of The Matrix is perhaps more fitting.
The best visualization of the theme of agency vs. control is the ballet classes in the movie. Ballet requires grace, elegance, and synchronicity. The women dance beautifully as one unit and one dancer out of sync ruins the entire effect. Ballet and synchronized swimming require precision and the same goes for the simulation — if one of the housewives discovers the truth, she will start a chain reaction once she tells the other wives. The one scene when Alice sees Margaret in the mirror parallels Natalie Portman in Black Swan, also a movie about the need for total control and a woman’s slipping sanity.
Secrecy is the glue that holds the Victory Project simulation together. We start to see the suburban illusion fall apart when Alice runs out of her house after killing Jack. It’s mentioned several times that above all else, the men ask their wives to be discreet. Even the trolleys and the classified files about Margaret have “Discretion is a Privilege” printed on them: it’s a privilege to be part of the experiment and it can only run smoothly if no one reveals the truth. What even is the truth in a simulated reality?
Jack is the real antagonist of the movie, stripping away Alice’s free will and subjecting her to be a passive object in his own fantasies. When their marriage in the real world starts deteriorating, he resorts to Discord forums and conspiracy subreddits instead of actually trying to find another job or working at their marriage. He’s a man child who can’t even order takeout without his wife there. To sum up this movie badly: a man loses his job and feels neglected by his doctor wife, so he decides to play dollhouse with their lives. For too long, women have been the ones to give up their careers, their dreams, and financial independence to their husbands. It was easy for Jack to be happy in the simulation, at the cost of his wife’s agency. But can anyone truly be happy without any control over their own lives? Is it real happiness if they live in a computer simulated reality? Alice represented women for centuries who were silenced by more powerful men trying to control and gaslight them.
Shelley’s betrayal of Frank would have been a more meaningful feminist message if the ending hadn’t been so rushed. We should’ve been cheering that this man, who’s been constantly gaslighting and controlling women under this thumb, is dead. Yet I didn’t feel anything other than confusion. Did she know all along about the simulation or is she just waking up? Did she plan to kill him all along and finally saw her chance? Did she play any role in the creation of the simulation, like Claire (Glenn Close) did in Stepford Wives?
Style Over Substance, Star Power Over Talent
Don’t Worry Darling had some powerful, albeit unoriginal, themes that didn’t deliver because of the awful pacing and unsatisfying conclusion. The movie drags on with so many hints that something’s amiss — egg shells that are empty, moving walls, and cryptic comments from a neighbor. It suffered from trailers that revealed way too much, erasing the rising tension and sense of unease that are so critical to a good thriller. Because Don’t Worry Darling spends more time building up the mystery than actually explaining it, it’s only in the last 30 minutes or so of a 2 hour movie that we find out what’s actually happening. The reveal feels rushed and leaves us with so many unanswered questions. A good mystery like Knives Out is even better the second time around because the pieces fit together in place, but I can’t say the same about this movie. Do yourself a favor and don’t think too hard about the final ending.
This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the movie. It’s got great sets, costumes, cinematography, and sound. I felt immersed into the 1950s and aesthetically the movie is beautiful; it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected from a movie that has 38% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, it could have been better if someone other than Harry Styles had been cast. There wasn’t much acting required on his part. We could have replaced him with a cardboard cutout of a Ken doll and there wouldn’t have been much difference. There was a pivotal scene during the climax of the movie that would have been more impactful if played by a more experienced actor, but instead it leaves the viewer feeling underwhelmed. I suppose Harry deserves some leeway since acting is clearly not his calling, but his performance does make me worry for the future of the Marvel Eternals franchise.
An Unmemorable But Aesthetic Barbie Movie
For those who have seen the movie, you will understand why I compare it to a Barbie movie. It’s not as bad as I had thought it would be and certainly does not warrant the hate that Olivia Wilde has received leading up to the release. However, she’s bit off more than she can chew. My biggest frustration with the movie is that so many of its problems can be fixed (with different casting, better pacing, and perhaps a different resolution). There was so much potential — the movie does not have to be groundbreaking or completely original to be meaningful or empowering. But the feminist messages were lost behind the jumble of the half-baked reveal.
And of course, some great Letterboxd reviews that sum up the movie far better than I ever could:
