‘All they ask of us is to stay here. Where it’s safe...’
Amidst all the discourse surrounding Don’t Worry Darling, it’s easy to forget that it is a film, not some celebrity reality TV show. The circus that was the promotional campaign seemed to raise expectations so in the end the final product was always going to feel underwhelming. And this is a shame because Don’t Worry Darling is a genuinely entertaining and enjoyable thriller…
Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack (Harry Styles) live a seemingly perfect life in a gated community in 1950s America. The company town of Victory, California is presided over by Victory HQ boss Frank (Chris Pine) and his wife Shelley (Gemma Chan). When Margaret (KiKi Layne), one of the housewives of Victory, has an ‘episode’, the veneer of respectability begins to fall away.
I’ll begin with the obvious points. Yes, the discourse was tiresome. No, Harry Styles isn’t going to win an Oscar anytime soon. Yes, this film has clear parallels with Get Out, The Stepford Wives and Rosemary’s Baby, and yes, the ‘twist’ is obvious. That doesn’t change the fact, however, that Don’t Worry Darling is a thriller that genuinely thrills, nor the fact that Florence Pugh’s performance is so good that it drowns out all the other noise that defined the film upon release. We saw with Midsommar that Pugh is unrivalled when it comes to portraying a woman on the knife edge between breakdown and revelation, and she plays it to perfection again here.
Elsewhere, Pine is suitably villainous and Styles is fine also, had he been an unknown, his performance would have gone by unnoticed save for its competence. The supporting cast does a great job with Layne suitably distressed and Timothy Simons channelling his inner slug as the slimy Dr. Collins. Director Olivia Wilde, who also co-stars as Alice’s friend and confidante Bunny, demonstrates the kind of chops that made her debut feature Booksmart so enjoyable, consistently making creative and interesting choices, and Katie Silberman’s screenplay whips along, justifying the two-hour-plus running time.
I really enjoyed Don’t Worry Darling, and it seems that this is a classic example of the critic-viewer disconnect. Forget all the hype, this is quite simply a good film that most people will enjoy.