Don’t Worry Darling

Directed by Olivia Wilde

★★★★

Sex, Divorce, Gossip…and that’s just the behind the scenes drama for Olivia Wilde’s latest, Don’t Worry Darling. And because of how interesting the behind the scenes drama is, critics seem to be setting their sights on Don’t Worry Darling to be the film to hate this season. This critic, however, enjoyed the hell out of it.

Sat in a utopian-like suburb smack in the middle of the desert, the film is reminiscent of films such as The Stepford Wives and The Truman Show, but still manages to do something new.

Don’t Worry Darling follows Bunny (Florence Pugh) as the doting 50’s-esque housewife to Jack (Harry Styles), who works for the secretive “Victory Project”, which promises it is working on insanely beneficial progressive energy. Of course, everything is not what it seems and Alice begins to spiral into paranoia and mania. Though familiar, the central mystery to the film is fascinating and keeps you constantly guessing as to what in the actual hell is really going on in the picture perfect Victory.

Wilde’s follows up the stellar and hilarious Booksmart, with this new genre venture. And like Booksmart, Wilde maintains a display of incredible craftsmanship. Editing is where Wilde singularly shines, creating a natural flow of things in both of her pictures. There is one scene in particular where a performance and conversation are taking place simultaneously in separate locations. Whereas most filmmakers cut back either incessantly or nonsensically to show the entirety of both scenarios, Wilde smartly leaves pieces out either for us to piece together or to maintain a sense of truth to her film’s flow.

While not many characters truly get a chance to shine, Florence Pugh puts on a phenomenal display of talent as Alice, constantly shifting through emotions with just the blink of an eye. Wilde also is very good as her best friend Bunny, as is Chris Pine’s devilishly charming Frank.

Though the film is engrossing, perhaps more time should have been spent in wrapping things up, as we don’t get enough time to explore what it all means. And given it’s central themes, it is hilariously ironic given the specifics of the drama fueling twitter surrounding the film and unfortunately, more focus may be on that rather than Wilde’s supremely strong sophomore outing.