Don't Worry Darling
directed by Olivia Wilde
written by Katie Silberman
2022
Don't Worry Darling feels like maybe someone optioned the script during the 90s, paid extra for some kind of insane 25 year exclusivity deal, then forgot all about it, and then, when time was almost about to run out, tried to recoup their investment with a rushed production and a maximal amount of behind-the-scenes cast drama doubling as a marketing blitz.
Darling is very much like one of the 'what is reality?' movies that were popular in the 90s until The Matrix came along and did the whole concept so well it basically put a nail in the subgenre. For about a decade between the rise of personal computing and the start of the new millennium, movie characters wandered through philosophical thought experiments come to life, wondering whether they're living in a simulation and whether any such thing as 'the real world' even exists. In terms of quality, these films ranged from Vanilla Sky at the low end to like, The Truman Show near the top. Don't Worry Darling wouldn't have been at the bottom of this particular barrel back then, but it definitely would've been bottom half, even if it were released when it was still trendy. Today it just seems like a total mess.
On the off chance you're planning to watch Darling, I don't want to strip it of one of its very few viewing pleasures by giving too much away, but it's clear almost immediately that Something Is Going On in this perfectly manicured suburb, full of immaculate stay-at-home wives and husbands who drive sports cars off-road through the desert to go work on some secret (military?) project they're not allowed to talk about. This obviously isn't the real 1950s or 60s, which makes the ubiquitous mimicry of that era's style a source of mystery. The total isolation from the outside world, and the sinister undertone to the men's work also draw you in.
Florence Pugh plays a character who starts off just like every other woman in this little community. She spends her days gossiping with the neighbors, taking bizarrely choreographed exercise classes, methodically cleaning every surface in her house, and preparing elaborate home-cooked dinners that get ruined when her husband Harry Styles decides to ravish her on the dining table. But Pugh's housewife was friends with another woman who recently disappeared from the neighborhood - and while everyone else obeys a tacit directive to never speak of this woman again, Pugh misses her friend and keeps asking awkward questions about what really happened. And as she pulls on that thread, the whole sweater quickly unravels.
One day, once her mind is open to questions and new possibilities, Pugh witnesses a plane crash in the desert. She does what no one is supposed to, and leaves town. She heads into the desert to investigate the crash and check for survivors who might need help. And then ... Something Happens in the desert ... and she wakes up in bed, back in her perfect home.
Once you know the ending of the film, and understand the secrets Pugh's character is trying to discover, you may ask yourself - what was that plane? where did it come from? why did it crash? And you will not for the life of you know the answer. It's like foreshadowing left over from an earlier draft when Darling had a completely different secret and different ending, that now points to nothing, and by all rights shouldn't happen at all.
After that, Pugh experiences a series of nightmarish dislocations. She wonders if they're hallucinations, if they're related to the plane crash, if they're connected to her missing friend, if she's going crazy, if she's going to disappear too.
These incidents are cryptic, maybe intentionally misleading. They're not tonally consistent, and only seem to indicate what's really going on one single time, perhaps by accident. I think director Olivia Wilde was just trying to capture as much strange imagery as she could on camera, apparently without worrying if it ever made sense. The bizarre synchronized dance classes seem to be in the film for the same reason. The most memorable of these strange incidents is when Pugh is cleaning the floor-to-ceiling windows in her hallway, and the hall suddenly narrows, crushing her against the windows, before suddenly returning to normal. The one actually-revealing scene is when Pugh is in the bath next to a mirror, and she slides her head underwater, but her reflection remains visible in the mirror and appears to be watching her. I wish they'd all been well-crafted.
Eventually, of course, Pugh will figure out the truth, though not before declaring war on Chris Pine, who runs the place, and not before wondering if she can trust her husband Styles. She can't, of course. In the 90s, Don't Worry Darling's tepid feminism might've seemed revelatory in a film of its (intended, hoped for) stature. Today it seems like the thinnest veneer, mostly there to provide a semblance of motivation to the characters who are eventually revealed to be villains.
Again, once you know the truth, all these scenes of conflict make even less sense than they seemed to when you still thought they were clues to help you solve the mystery. They're not. They're just more spaghetti thrown at the wall in the hope that anything will stick. What sticks with me is Pine cackling 'look at that boy dance!' like a crazed impresario as Styles does a little jig on stage for his boss's amusement. That's like, memorable, but it doesn't mean anything.
The best way to enjoy this film is probably while drinking with friends, letting the weirdness wash over you, and laughing at the absurdity - there's a lot of it! - along the way.
The one high point I want to give credit to is the soundtrack. Throughout Darling, there's nearly always a pop song from the 50s or 60s playing, audible to both the characters and the audience. At first this seems to be just one more piece of set dressing, only meant to help build up the faux mid-century pastiche. And it is that, too. But also, it's clear that the songs were all chosen with intention, for a reason. They're all thematically consistent, and in retrospect, almost comically on-the-nose in terms of their foreshadowing. But good! The music the only part of the film that's actually pulling its own weight in that department, the only aspect of the production that seemingly knows what it's doing, what its goal is and how to accomplish it. I'd much rather have that, than a soundtrack that really is just there because of the years the songs were written.
Originally watched December 2022.
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