Movie Review: Don’t Worry Darling

Following up her 2019 directorial debut, Booksmart, with what ostensibly looks like a remake of The Stepford Wives (1975), would be a huge gamble, were Olivia Wilde not up to the challenge. The result is a moody and frighteningly poignant social commentary titled Don’t Worry Darling that somehow seems like it shouldn’t play as relevant as it unfortunately is. 

As the film opens, perfect couple Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack (Harry Styles) are introduced living in an idyllic experimental company town housing the workers (men) of a top-secret entity called the Victory Project and their families. The 1950s-era worldview espoused by Victory Project CEO Frank (Chris Pine) seems embedded in every corner of the fabricated community. While the men get down to the important business of working on the “development of progressive materials,” their wives are expected to relax and enjoy the perfect life that has been created for them (after the chores are finished that is). But, when Alice begins to see faults within the far too-perfect community, she sets out on to try not only to ease her own mind, but to expose exactly what is happening beneath the surface of this so-called paradise. 

Working from a story by Carey and Shane Van Dyke, Katie Silberman’s screenplay succeeds in delivery biting commentary after biting commentary on societal roles and dictates and then suggests they should be torn down immediately. There is a powerfully subversive tone at work in the film that is reminiscent of that of Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017) and the message contained within is equally as damning of the place that our homogenized society tends to force those that don’t fit into the idealized construct of the “patriarchy” to exist in. 

Florence Pugh in “Don’t Worry Darling.” Warner Bros. Pictures/New Line.

Director Wilde does a remarkable job echoing the vibe of 1970s horror films with a very moody, yet elegant film that never strays from the creepy aura it constructs for itself right out of the gate. It is an inspiring showing that portends perhaps even greater things to come from a gifted filmmaker. John Powell’s score accents the editing provided by Affonso Gonçalves that keeps the film moving at an insanely entertaining pace that never lets up during the film’s two-hour running time. Matthew Libatique’s cinematography does a wonderful job of bringing the production design provide by Katie Byron to life while making the film feel as if it did, in fact, occur in the mid-seventies. 

While the prospect of a third remake of The Stepford Wives would likely make anyone cringe just a little with doubt, the bold vision and execution of Don’t Worry Darling succeeds in creating a new damning view of the idealized patriarchy.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com

An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

@miketyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

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