Don’t Worry Darling

Few films have garnered as much attention prior to release as Olivia Wilde’s second directorial feature. The aptly named Don’t Worry Darling has been filling column inches for some time on account of the titillating tales of its many off-set challenges, including frequent clashes between Wilde and leading lady Florence Pugh.

Sadly, the media storm is far more engaging than anything that happens on screen. Wilde’s film is an uneven smorgasbord of cultural references, with Inception, The Matrix and The Truman Show all cited by the director as influences. However, the picture that I was most reminded of was Frank Oz’s equally disappointing 2004 reboot of The Stepford Wives.

Just as Nicole Kidman carried proceedings on that film, Pugh is left to do all the heavy lifting here. Those of a hyper-critical persuasion might suggest that her performance is somewhat of an inferior rethread of her stellar turn in Ari Aster’s Midsommar, but it’s undeniable that she is the only performer who keeps you invested in Katie Silberman’s uneven screenplay.

The same certainly can not be said about poor Harry Styles, who struggles to hold his own in his first major role. The range of accents his character goes through is mightily impressive though, almost accounting for an oral A-Z of major UK cities. The pop mega-star is unlikely to be perturbed by any such criticism though, given that his involvement in proceedings (and romance with Wilde) is one of the major reasons for the film’s initial commercial success.

Also, disappointing – though admittedly in a more surprising way – is Chris Pine’s sinewy villain, who Wilde has admitted is modelled on the controversial right-wing commentator Jordan Peterson. Any good scoundrel needs plenty of screentime to emit the audience’s antagonism, but Pine and counterpart Gemma Chan are overshadowed by Pugh and Style’s mostly dull suburban melodrama throughout.

Silberman’s big twist also falls flat in a manner not dissimilar to the one that befell Steven Knight’s Serenity, another dud that this affair brought back memories of. Like Don’t Worry Darling itself, it feels like a cack-handed attempt at feminism that succeeds only in painting the opposite sex in a dull, stereotypical way that neglects the many nuances of any debate concerning the gender divide.

All in all, this is a common case of a film thinking that it’s far smarter than it is and an ample reminder that it’s much harder to say something original about complex, era-spanning topics than the average screenwriter and/or director seems to think it is.