That’s no kind of dis - it’s an all-too-rare pleasure to see a female director working in this populist register, with considerable studio resources behind her. But behind both films you can sense a director with strong, propulsive, crowd-pleasing instincts, who likes to go big and doesn’t have much time for shades of gray. There doesn’t seem to be much linking this glamorous, hyper-real, rather sour psychological thriller with Wilde’s previous film, the likable and conscientiously sweet teen comedy Booksmart. She’s drawn to these imperfections, but nobody else seems to notice her own attention slips, and her reality starts to fracture. But she can’t help noticing cracks in the facade of this perfect world - a disturbed wife in the house next door, an empty eggshell, a plane falling out of the sky. What they do there is a closely guarded secret the project’s leader is a charismatic devil called Frank (Pine), a cultish figure who speaks only in bland, nonspecific aphorisms about their common cause and utopian lifestyle.Īlice glides through this existence in a contented haze, enjoying Jack’s attentions at home, sipping drinks with her sardonic neighbor Bunny (Wilde), and practicing ballet with the other women under the cool gaze of Frank’s wife, Shelley (Gemma Chan). All the women here are homemakers, and all the men work at a mysterious facility out in the desert called the Victory Project. Alice (Pugh) and Jack (Styles) are a besotted young couple living in a modular, midcentury suburban paradise shaded by tall palm trees. If there were troubles on set or discord among the cast, it doesn’t show in the finished product, which is slick, and conspicuously well made - if not well thought out.ĭon’t Worry Darling is set in a 1950s corporate idyll. But happily, we can leave all mention of the scandal there. In that context, the cyclone of gossip that has preceded its release feels like part of the experience, or at least consistent with it: a decadent, glossy tableau of turn-of-the-millennium celebrity culture. (At least, I think that’s what Harry was trying to say.) It’s not very clever and not wholly successful, but it is the kind of bold, brassy, high-concept studio thriller we don’t get so often these days. It takes a big swing at a big, dumb idea, aiming to smack it all the way up into the cheap seats. It’s got a little bit of sex, a little bit of mystery, and a little bit of action. It looks sleek and sounds loud and enveloping. It’s full of hot famous people wearing immaculate clothes. Don’t Worry Darling, directed by Olivia Wilde and also starring Florence Pugh, really is a go-to-the-theater film movie. The thing is, having now seen the film, I know what Harry was saying. It feels like a real, you know, go-to-the-theater film movie.” A clip of his co-star Chris Pine appearing to lose his grip on reality while Styles said these words went viral, and - not for the first, or last, time in Don’t Worry Darling’s cursed press tour - Styles found himself the butt of the internet’s jokes. During the infamous Venice film festival press conference for Don’t Worry Darling, pop dreamboat and aspirant actor Harry Styles described his new star vehicle thus: “My favorite thing about the movie is, like, it feels like a.
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