“Don’t Worry Darling” is a 2022 thriller film directed by Olivia Wilde starring Florence Pugh and Harry Styles that tells the story of Alice and Jack’s seemingly perfect 1950s marriage in a utopian experimental community when Alice starts to question the society she has grown to love and soon finds the disturbing secrets being hidden within.
Spoiler Free Review Ahead.
The movie does start off as a typical thriller film, but succeeds in escaping that generalization by the midway point in the film when things finally start to connect for Alice about the desert town “Victory.”
The movie, set mainly in California in what appears to be the late 1950s, makes extraordinary use of production design, dramatic staging and narrative details in order to taint its own realism and render the action eerie, uncanny and elusive.
The plot of this film is unlike any that has been put out in recent times. The storyline is unique to the category it belongs to. Thrillers have a habit of being predictable, which makes them less fun to watch. However, “Don’t Worry Darling” had viewers on the edge of their seats with very few predicting the ending.
The cinematography is the main allure of the film. Each shot is carefully crafted in a way that viewers can easily internalize every camera movement, break down every slight angle change and focus on why the current scene has warmer lighting than the previous. It is the kind of movie one could be happy to watch over and over to see what may have possibly been missed the first time.
Award-winning actress Florence Pugh did an amazing job in the film, really capturing the feeling of insanity after realizing her whole life is not nearly as picture-perfect as it seems. It is difficult to not root for her as a protagonist and to find yourself wondering what you would do in her position.
Harry Styles, while not a star-studded actor, definitely holds his own in the movie. Nothing about his performance is outlandishly good or bad, but he does not fail to keep himself rooted in the character of Jack. Even when the thread is finally unraveled, you may find yourself sympathizing with him and the extent he went to for his family to be happy.
This movie did miss the mark when it came to how Alice got to her otherwise triumphant ending. They built Alice as such a strong character and when it was time to finally confront her conflict, she slightly folds under the pressure. However, this does not take away a significant amount of satisfaction from the ending.
What makes this movie so good is that it feels like a movie. Its runtime of two hours and three minutes feels like a third of that with how immersive it is till the very end. Every scene has something to look at.
Overall, nothing about “Don’t Worry Darling” is cliché and a film everyone should see at least once.
Rating: 4.8/5
