It has been a little while since I last reviewed a new film, hasn’t it? The last time I was doing that I was shitting all over the mess that is Thor: Love and Thunder (2022). I would like to say I was restarting my reviews with a film I enjoyed more than that, but alas Don’t Worry Darling (2022) is also a huge shambles. If you want to see what I watched in between those two films, including plenty of good films, you can read my post from Tuesday but for now, I should probably crack on in breaking down why Don’t Worry Darling is a pretty bad film. Turn away now if you don’t want SPOILERS. The film follows Alice (Florence Pugh), a housewife in 1950s America, living in an experimental utopian community with her husband, Jack (Harry Styles). Jack’s job in this community is unclear and the dangers of venturing out of the community uncertain. When one of Alice’s friends seems to question the legitimacy of the community, Alice also begins to ask questions as the idea of utopia fades quickly.
As I made clear in that introduction, I am not the biggest fan of this film, and a lot of this review is going to be having a pop at it. That being said the film isn’t all bad, in fact, a lot of the aspects of the film are good but they are completely bowled over by the narrative which is a huge mess. First of all, Florence Pugh is unsurprisingly great. She never seems to put a foot wrong in any film she is in and that is no different here, despite the material she is working with being as naff as it is. Secondly, Chris Pine puts in a good performance. He has a great presence about him, and he pulls off mysterious and charming with an underbelly of evil very well. Unfortunately, he is barely in the film and his character seems to just be forgotten about for the conclusion. I will also mention while I’m talking about performances that Harry Styles is fine. He isn’t great and there are a few moments where it feels quite amateur, but mostly he does okay in the role. The film also looks good. I am a fan of a 1950s aesthetic, and the film captures that look and style well. The film also has plenty of great cinematography and fun visuals with good blocking, mostly involving shooting dancing from a bird's eye view. The best visuals within the film all come in the nightmare sequences that appear sporadically throughout and are when the film becomes somewhat interesting.
And that is about it for what I liked about the film. Those aspects would probably have made this film somewhat good if the narrative wasn’t so poor. It starts off kind of okay and gets you invested and intrigued somewhat into the mystery of this community. But as the film goes on you realise quite quickly that the film has no real intention of actually explaining what this community is all about. I mean they tell you how it works, but why it exists is never even made vaguely clear. And even when it does reveal what the secret of the community is it is so stupid that I couldn’t quite believe it. This is your final warning to turn away to avoid spoilers. So, it turns out that the whole thing is a virtual reality simulation, and that real-life Jack has put Alice in a comatose state and is keeping her trapped in this world. Oh, and it's actually modern day as well. It is so dumb. And the realisation of this leads to the climax that just continues to get dumber. You know how I mentioned earlier that Chris Pine’s character seems to be forgotten for the conclusion? Well, in order to wrap that up they have his wife, who is in the film even less than him, stab him unprovoked. There is no build-up at all to this. Nowhere in the film are these characters shown to be at odds with each other and so when this happens it comes out of nowhere and makes no sense. But the dumbest part of the film is that Alice works out there is something going on because all of the wives in the community are from one of three places, met their husband in one of three ways, and had their honeymoons in one of three destinations. Are you kidding me? You mean to tell me this virtual world is so advanced that it is as real as the real world, but you can’t be bothered to come up with more than three ways that all these couples meet? It is so stupid, and it only exists so that Alice can be seen to get the upper hand on Chris Pine. At least it is so dumb that I had a little chuckle to save me from the boredom that is the rest of this film.
The fallout that happened in the build-up to this film is far more interesting than anything that happens in this film. It is a shame because I think there are some decent ideas and a couple of great performances. But despite this and some impressive visuals, the narrative is so messy and stupid that it completely overshadows the rest of the film. I can’t recommend it on any level really, although it seems to be doing very well at the box office so I guess the power of the insane publicity and Harry Styles is doing wonders for it.
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