Yet even when the film spins its wheels in predictable, expected territory, Don’t Worry Darling has a true saving grace in star Florence Pugh.
The premiere of Don’t Worry Darling has been marked by frenzied speculation. There’s the alleged fallout between director Olivia Wilde and star Florence Pugh, with added intrigue by way of male lead Harry Styles and Shia LaBeouf, the actor he replaced. The movie itself practically fell out of the conversation, so much so that conventional wisdom predicted the movie would be as messy on-screen as its release was off-screen. Now that it has premiered at the Venice Film Festival, let the record show that the result is far more banal. It’s not catastrophic – just clichéd.
Working from a script by Booksmart scribe Katie Silberman, Wilde dabbles in the high-concept suburban psychodrama reminiscent of Pleasantville or The Truman Show. Florence Pugh’s Alice and Harry Styles’ Jack are two halves of a sexually satisfied couple living in the planned desert community of Victory. The symmetry of the mid-century Palm Springs aesthetic echoes the utopian ideals of its slick but suspicious founder, Chris Pine’s Frank. “There is beauty in control,” the townspeople take as their motto, and that certainly shows up in the routinized nature of gender performance. The husbands go off to work in “development of progressive materials,” while the wives stay home and tend to the house.
As it always goes, things that look too good to be true usually are. Wilde hires a coterie of competent craftspeople to help create a world that would be cozy enough to keep questions at bay. Costume designer Arianne Phillips has the attractive cast looking chic as they traipse about the gorgeous interiors of Katie Byron and Mary Florence Brown. Meanwhile, Matthew Libatique’s sunny photography gives the film a sleekness that cannot help but strike as uncanny.
It’s fun to luxuriate in the façades for a bit, though Don’t Worry Darling can often feel like peering into a Mad Men-themed COVID costume party featuring some ludicrously attractive people. Wilde casts an eclectic group of actors to fill out the world of Victory, mixing comedians like Kate Berlant and Nick Kroll with more traditional thespians like KiKi Layne and Gemma Chan to uneasy effect.
