DON'T WORRY DARLING : Tuesday 18th October 2022

I saw the M Rated 'DON'T WORRY DARLING' at my local multiplex this week, and this American psychological thriller film is Directed, Co-Produced and starring Olivia Wilde in only her second Directorial outing following the highly acclaimed 'Booksmart' in 2019. This film saw its World Premiere screening at the Venice International Film Festival in early September, was released in the US in late September and here in Australia on 6th October having generated mixed Reviews from Critics and costing US$35M to produce and so far returning US$79M in Box Office receipts.  

Set in the sun drenched company town of Victory, California, believed to be sometime in the 1950's Alice and Jack Chambers (Florence Pugh and Harry Styles respectively) seem to lead a near perfect life. Everyday the men leave their neat homes, smartly suited and booted, and reverse their cars out of their driveways and make the journey in convoy across the desert to Victory Headquarters, leaving their ever dutiful wives to clean the house, prepare dinner, relax by the pool with a cocktail with the other wives and ensure they are waiting at the front door with their husbands favourite cocktail in hand when he comes home from a hard day at the office. 

All of the town's womenfolk, including Alice's good friends Bunny (Olivia Wilde), Margaret (KiKi Layne) and Peg (Kate Berlant) are discouraged from asking questions about their husbands' work and told not to venture out to the Headquarters. Other than the fact that the husbands are permitted to state that they are collectively working on 'the development of progressive materials' this is just about all the wives are allowed to know about their dear husband's tireless work. Margaret has subsequently become an outcast after taking her young son out into the desert, resulting in her son's apparent death, although she claims that Victory took him from her as punishment for venturing out into the desert. While attending a party hosted by Frank (Chris Pine), Victory's enigmatic founder and leader, and his wife Shelley (Gemma Chan), Alice sees Margaret's husband trying to administer her medication.

One morning while taking the bus across town, Alice observes a light aircraft crash out in the desert. She rushes to help out across the desert and eventually comes to the Headquarters, a small building perched high up on a rocky outcrop covered in mirror-like windows. After touching one, she experiences surreal hallucinations and blacks out. She wakes up back home later that night with no idea how she got there. Jack is in the kitchen doing his best to prepare dinner for them both. In the following days, she experiences increasingly strange occurrences. She receives a phone call from Margaret, who claims to have seen the same thing Alice did, and rushing over to her house she sees Margaret stood on the roof who then proceeds to slit her own throat and falls backwards from the roof onto the grass below. Before she can reach Margaret, Alice is dragged away by two men in red jumpsuits, while two others quickly bundle up Margaret's body. 

Later that evening Jack counters Alice's claims and says Margaret simply fell while cleaning the windows and is recovering. This story is further verified by town physician and co-founder of the Victory Project Dr. Collins (Timothy Simons), who attempts to give Alice prescription drugs, but Jack intervenes saying that she doesn't need them. Alice becomes increasingly paranoid, anxious and confused, and during a special Victory event where Frank gives Jack a special promotion, Alice breaks down in the ladies rest room and is comforted by Bunny. Alice attempts to explain everything to her, but Bunny reacts angrily, accusing Alice of being selfish.

Some time later, Alice and Jack invite their immediate neighbours (except Bunny and her husband Dean) to dinner, with Frank and Shelley as special guests, and newbies in town Violet and Bill Johnson (Sydney Chandler and Douglas Smith respectively). Frank speaks privately with Alice in the kitchen as she is putting the finishing touches to dinner, implying that she is correct in her suspicions. Encouraged by his near confession, she attempts to expose him over dinner, but instead, Frank manipulates her accusations, making her look delusional to the other guests. After the guests have all left abruptly and before the meal had even started Alice begs Jack to take them both away from Victory and to do so tonight, straight away. Jack initially agrees, but when Alice gets in the car, he allows for her be taken away by Frank's men in red jumpsuits. Dr. Collins oversees Alice's electroshock therapy. During the procedure, she sees visions of herself in another life, as a present-day overworked and stressed out surgeon named Alice Warren who lives with the unemployed Jack and struggles to make ends meet. Jack spends his time listening to the voice of Frank selling his project over a website called 'Organised Chaos'. 

After her bout of therapy Alice returns to Victory and is welcomed home by Jack, but she continues to experience hallucinations and flash-backs. She later remembers the whole truth, that Victory is a simulated world created by Frank, and that Jack forced her into the simulation in the hope that they can lead an idyllic life together. When Jack realises she knows the truth, he claims he did this for her as she was miserable in her real life, but Alice is angered that Jack took away her autonomy and the life she loved. Jack gets down on his knees and hugs Alice, begging her to forgive him, then attempts to squeeze the life out of her forcing Alice to smash a heavy glass Whisky tumbler down on his head, killing him outright. 

Frank is called with news of Jack's death and sends his men in red jumpsuits to apprehend Alice. Bunny finds Alice and explains that she has always known Victory was a simulated world, but chooses to stay so she can be with her two young children, who died in reality. She tells Alice to escape in Jack's car and go to the Headquarters, which is an exit portal from the simulation. The other wives come to realise the truth as their husbands begin to panic, and join in the car chase. Alice drives Jack's car out across the desert towards the Headquarters, chased by Dr. Collins and Frank's men, who crash into each other sending their three cars exploding in a ball of flame. 

At their house, Shelley, wanting to regain her own control of the Victory Project, stabs Frank to death with a kitchen knife in the chest and then twists it for good measure. Alice makes it to Headquarters, where she has a vision of Jack asking her to stay. Alice ignores the vision and rushes to the window just before Frank's men reach her, and wakes up in the present day real world.

For me 'Don't Worry Darling' is all style over substance. The impeccable set design to the cinematography are top rate, and the performances of Florence Pugh and Chris Pine in particular more than carry the film, supported by an average performance from Harry Styles but one in which he shows he's got the acting chops to go the distance. After a promising first third, the films meanders and gets all too repetitive in the middle section before limping home to an underwhelming ending that felt rushed, half baked and left me scratching my head with all those unanswered questions. The film is a mash up of 'The Truman Show', 'Pleasantville' and 'The Stepford Wives' and whilst Olivia Wilde's intentions may have been admirable she has hardly reinvented the genre here, and instead has merely dusted it off, polished it up and given it a dose of 2022 glitz.

'Don't Worry Darling' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-