Riot’s Movie Reviews: Don’t Worry Darling
I should find it ironic that for the second weekend in a row, I found myself sitting alone in a nearly empty theater, watching another interpretation of women empowerment. As it stands lately, that’s just the path that new content is on. Unlike last week’s triumph though, Don’t Worry Darling was an absolute mess of feminist tropes and stereotypical “toxic masculinity.” Most people (followers of entertainment news) by now have seen/heard the numerous scandals surrounding the cast and the director (Olivia Wilde). Since I’m inclined to admit my biases, I couldn’t help but have my views slightly swayed by one controversy in particular, which I will try to touch on later. Don’t Worry Darling had all the makings of something that could have been great but couldn’t help being its own worst enemy. Creatively, it’s becoming more and more clear that when you enter into a project with bad intentions, or simply bad messaging, it seems almost doomed to fail.
Opening on a rambunctious, 1950’s era party, the audience is introduced to the couples that dominate the entirety of the story. There is Alice and Jack (Florence Pugh and Harry Styles), Bunny and Dean (Olivia Wilde and Nick Kroll), and Peg and Peter (Kate Berlant and Asif Ali). The events of the film are centered in a town named “Victory,” an enclosed community that appears to be the peak of wealthy suburban living. Every couple has a beautiful home, a shiny car, and all the amenities afforded the upper class. As far as we know, the couples are madly in love, the houses are neatly kept, and the men all head out to work on their secret “community project,” happily toiling away while the wives hold down the homestead. By now, we’ve all seen enough stories like this to know that something is “rotten in the state of Denmark.” Sure enough, one seemingly small disruption in the perfect façade of the town begins a long string of progressively dramatic events that dismantles reality and toys with the lines between gender roles. Unfortunately, the former (far more interesting part) is swallowed whole by the latter, culminating in a cut to black that was neither clever nor thought provoking. Since there isn’t enough for me to compliment story-wise or thematically, I’ll get the “pros” out of the way quickly. The set/costume design is nothing short of amazing. The soundtrack is compelling and haunting in the right moments. Florence Pugh was fantastic but had long bouts of one-dimensional, “shock and awe” facial expressions (I blame a poor script for this more than anything). She does it well, it was just done too much. Finally, the visuals (mainly involving a troupe of ballet dancers) were unsettling enough to keep the audience hooked in.
Moving onto the negatives is going to be a bit of a task though, considering my commitment to spoiler-free reviews.
Certainly, the only storyline we really care about is completely centered around Pugh’s character and that’s a damn good thing considering she’s the only performance really worth writing about. To be sure, Pugh dominates the screen time and much of it is solo but when the film’s premise is wrapped around the relationship of Jack and Alice, one would hope the chemistry between the two would be even the least bit palpable (Styles and Pugh’s kissing scenes remind me of two dogs play fighting). Since the characters live and operate in a community, we aren’t allowed to isolate what happens to Pugh. At the very least, not in a way that doesn’t dismantle the entire premise of the film. Wilde’s character in particular, is unsurprisingly (considering she’s the director) given a chance for a redemptive story arc that makes so little sense it’s laughable. The writer’s/director’s attempt to broad stroke the predictable and unoriginal “all men are evil” storyline is inconsistent at best and filled with plot holes so big you could leap through them. The film’s more stunning visuals are often linked to important plot points, but they aren’t given any legitimate explanation and leaves the audience often thinking, “okay, that was cool. But why?” The farther you delve into the plot, the more it seems like everything was meant to unravel. The world of “Victory” is supposed to be some pinnacle of intellect and cunning but inevitably ends up being a disappointing mess of stupidity.
Wrap-Up: Wilde appears committed to turn the world against her, all in the name of generating press for a bad film. I’ve touched on this idea before, but I’m often baffled by Hollywood’s determination to input hypocritical messaging into their stories. The Frank (Chris Pine) character has a number of commentaries associated with him (publicly paraded by Wilde), one of which is a cautionary tale against idolatry. Hollywood making a case against blindly following celebrities is laughable. They often expect people to hang on their every word, to follow their influence, but only if it fits within the narrative they’ve chosen? Anything outside of which is dismissed as a threat. Wilde and her writing troupe, by calling out a “pseudo intellectual” only expose themselves as willfully ignorant, too lazy to simply read a book or even watch a quick YouTube video and too committed to the ideological game of follow the leader. If you’re going to go out of your way to target somebody in real life, you should probably know what the hell you’re talking about and you should certainly not be so laughably moronic as to leave receipts for your lies. It seems that far too many people these days live in constant fear of some form of the Bogeyman, lying in wait behind every corner and hiding in every bush. Sorry ladies, there isn’t some grand, masculine conspiracy to bend you to men’s will and steal away your independence. I’m not so ignorant as to believe that sexism doesn’t exist, but to take it to the extent that Don’t Worry Darling does is like trying to keep alive a relic of the past. In fact I would argue by telling stories like this, it almost ensures that it will stay alive. If people adopted the idea of Hanlon’s Razor (“never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”) more often, it would do society a lot of good. Even I would be willing to apply this to some of my views on Hollywood, but I think it would prove a lie to say there isn’t more than a few agendas at play. Nonetheless, I think it would be a better practice for a lot of us to temper our beliefs and realize that it’s far more likely there are not “systemic whatever” (take your pick of racism, patriarchy, classism, etc.) or hidden cabals trying to manipulate society towards their master plan.
Riot’s Rating: 4.5/10: Don’t Worry Darling isn’t worth a second watch and certainly not worth even a matinee fee. If you’re committed to seeing it, wait for streaming.
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