Don’t Worry Darling (2022) - Movie Review
What do you get when you take a half-baked script, a second-time director, and a pretty incredible cast?
A really bad movie, that’s what.
Let’s discuss.
I really go into these reviews with an open mind. I hope for something new and revelatory. I really want to watch good movies. I want to praise the actors and the directors—and especially the writers. However, I’m often disappointed and forced to expound on how bad the films I’m asked to watch are. For every surprise like The Deep House there’s a dozen Smileys.
It’s not just the horror genre experiencing this watering down of film as an art form. It’s an indictment of Hollywood as a whole.
Yes, Hollywood. Foreign film is still leagues above American Film. They may not have the massive budgets of Hollywood, but the foreign market is making better quality films with less.
Hollywood is a corporate machine made worse by the franchise sickness caused by the evil empire’s (Disney) flooding of the market on a near constant basis with more and more franchises of diminishing returns. These actions have forced other companies like Warner Media, Netflix, Amazon, and Apple to focus their funds on films and shows that have franchise potential. They scoop up the best directors and then hamstring them with the crappy scripts and tie them up in productions for years.
Thus, there’s less talent available and studios are far less likely to give a job to a first timer with talent over a first timer who is already famous for something else.
Enter Olivia Wilde, mediocre actress turned director.
Woah, don’t get mad at me. Name a single great performance that she’s done.
I’m waiting…
That’s what I thought.
It’s one thing when an actor of the talent of Robert Redford or Jodie Foster takes the reins of a film. They are masters at the craft of acting, students of the medium. When they talk to actors, they have a gravitas and a tenure that demands respect.
When you have the co-star of Cowboys vs. Aliens directing, that respect is lacking. Especially when said person runs the production like a bachelorette party.
More on this in a bit.
First, let’s talk about the “film.”
The movie focuses on Alice and Jack Chambers as they navigate their lives in an oddly perfect 1950’s-esque community. The men go to work and the women stay home cooking and cleaning the day away. The days are sunny and the nights are quiet. Everyone seems to get along until one of Alice’s neighbors slits her own throat leading Alice into a surreal journey through the desert and her own psyche. Will she uncover the mysteries of Victory, California or will she vanish like all the others who questioned the way things work. Find out today in Don’t Worry Darling.
Florence Pugh is the greatest actress of a generation. She is beyond reproach. Every performance she puts in is incredible and this movie is no exception. When she is verbally sparring with Chris Pine’s Jack, it’s electric. When she is forced to do the majority of her scenes with Harry Styles… You can feel her pain.
Styles isn’t an actor. I know people love him for some reason, even though he looks like he’s part eel and his music is corporately manufactured garbage. He can’t act. He can fake the non-verbals due to dozens of music video performances, but you can’t fudge intonation or charisma. He has no chemistry with anyone in this film and it really drags the movie down. I talked with a couple other folks I know who’ve seen the film and they all say the same thing. Styles ruined the movie.
I think that’s an overstatement, but that’s how bad this performance is.
The Script and the Directing ruined the movie.
The fact that Styles was cast is already a point of contention in Hollywood, as Wilde was sleeping with the actor during filming and their affair was flaunted in the cast’s face. This coming after Wilde fired Shia Labeouf, after he requested that they do table reads and rehearsals prior to filming (standard practice by the way). Wilde proceeded to tell every reporter she could talk to that she fired Labeouf for being “trouble and a hellraiser” on set. A claim which was refuted by multiple actors and crew who worked on the film including the film’s star, Florence Pugh.
This movie would have been 1000 times better with Labeouf. His intensity paired with Pugh’s would have been the emotional powder keg the film needed to keep me viewing.
But that didn’t happen and I was forced to drink a cup of coffee halfway through to stay awake.
The film is shot well, but it’s nothing groundbreaking. The attempt at over exposed, noire-ish sci-fi is derivative of recent television shows like Westworld and the remake of The Prisoner.
Let’s talk—SPOOOOOOOOOOOIIIIIIIILLLLLLLEEEEEEERS
Jesus Christ, the twist in this movie is so goddamn awful, I just took the Lord’s name in vain twice. According the the church folks, that means I’m twice damned, and I don’t regret it. What a fucking dumpster fire of a final act. The film turns from a promising first thirty minutes to an outright remake of 2004’s Stepford Wives.
Olivia Wilde remade The Stepford Wives and didn’t even remake the GOOD ONE?
When the twist happened, I just walked out of the room.
You’re trying to tell me “sex symbol” Harry Styles is supposed to be an Incel who kidnapped his successful ex and has her locked in a VR simulation that other rich incels set-up?
Not only is it shades of one of the worst films ever made, 2019’s Serenity, but its nonsensical. There isn’t enough time in the movie to explain how they got away with this. I am a certified IT professional and am trained in both hardware and networking, The idea that this type of mesh network would even be feasible anytime close to reality is a joke. World of Warcraft can barely keep from going offline due to minor DDOS attacks and you’re trying to tell me a group of incels wouldn’t turn on each other or let brag that they’ve enslaved the girl they’ve been stalking?
These losers brag on any negativity they spread in the world.
It doesn’t make social or technological sense.
Don’t watch this movie.
If you do have a masochistic streak and don’t value your time, the film will be streaming on HBO MAX starting Nov. 7th.
