Over at Gabbing Geek, we put out a “year of anticipation” every year where we gather all the movies, TV shows, and other assorted media that we’re all looking forward to and put it out sometime around New Year’s Day. For myself, I do a lot of the compiling and make three statements before the others add their thoughts. I say what the upcoming thing is, then I say why we’re looking forward to it, and then I say why we might be a little wary of it. Sometimes the items that go up aren’t something I have much knowledge of and have maybe a title and some of the cast. Such was the case for Don’t Worry Darling this year. My reason to be wary was basically this was Olivia Wilde’s second movie in the director’s chair, the first being a high school comedy, and I wasn’t sure she’d proven herself in other genres yet.
Well, the actual movie seems to have generated, let’s face it, some really strange bits in the gossip columns. Stories about how Wilde and lead actress Florence Pugh didn’t get along or actor Chris Pine’s general indifference at a press briefing, or even whether or not co-star Harry Styles spit on Pine or not seem to have given the movie all the wrong kind of buzz, to say nothing of a lot of underwhelming response to the movie itself. So yeah, I went to see it opening weekend just to see if it was an absolute train wreck.
Alice (Pugh) is a housewife in an idyllic, planned community out in the desert where all the men work for the Victory Project, a place where people who aren’t employees are forbidden to go. This is all done under the leadership of Frank (Chris Pine), who seems to run the community like some sort of cult. He hosts afternoon radio talks for the women, his preferences are carried out on every level, and he seems to be keeping an eye on everything. His mantra of how chaos is the enemy of progress and all the men are working on some sort of mission to produce a progressive metal that will make the world a better place. That’s the whole point of the community: to make the world a better place, and the world belongs to these people.
And while Alice seems happy to spend her days as a housewife with breaks to go shopping or take a ballet class under the auspices of Frank’s wife Shelley (Gemma Chan), something isn’t quite right. Alice’s former friend Margaret (KiKi Layne) is on the outs because she’s doubting the place. Soon, Alice finds herself seeing things, and she just feels like everything is off. What are the men up to all day? Does it have something to do with the random earthquakes that hit from time to time? Why is everything so secret? And what does the Victory Project even want?
So, I want to say up front that this is something of a hard movie to describe. I try to keep a no spoilers policy here, especially for new releases, and a few reviews I saw did hint at things that made me guess a few plot points. That in and of itself wasn’t a real problem. Wilde’s movie, if nothing else, is gorgeous to look at. The Victory Community has a distinct aesthetic, looking like an idealistic 1950s community, the kind some Americans claim to desire, but also with a lot of signs and posters that make the place look downright Orwellian in places. Pine’s Frank is at best mysterious and at worst sinister from the moment he appears on screen, and he’s good in the role. In fact, all of the cast is fine in their respective roles, the only one I found a wee bit questionable was director Wilde herself as Bunny, Alice’s next door neighbor and good friend. Pugh especially is doing her usual good job here, and while Styles almost holds his own, there was a part of me that wondered if original actor Shia LeBeouf would have done if not a better job, but at the least a very different one.
However, there’s something about the movie that doesn’t quite hold together. The script throws a lot of hints and ideas out, and while those ideas aren’t exactly ignored, they also don’t seem to quite work. There’s a central idea here about how some men treat women, and it’s not a bad message or even one that isn’t artfully told. For me, it seems in places like Wilde was maybe trying a little too hard. Yeah, this is a trippy movie, and a lot of what she does works, but at the same time, it also doesn’t add up to a particularly satisfying whole, either for the ideas it presents or the story it tells. I wouldn’t call it bad or even the trainwreck I was somewhat expecting. But I likewise wouldn’t call it that good. If you’re curious, it probably wouldn’t hurt until it hits HBO Max.
Grade: C
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