Don’t Worry Darling (2022)
“There is beauty in control. There is grace in symmetry. We move as one”
According to the holy bible of The Matrix over at www.en.wikipedia.org the creation of and fallout from creating Don’t Worry Darling was anything but representative of the carefree nature of the title of the film. Perhaps that’s fitting for a film of a lot of enjoyably moving parts clashing together in a film that reminded me of so many divergent films and television shows of recent times. 1998’s The Truman Show is an obvious connection, less so perhaps is the Michel Gondry directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind from 2004. More recently, I’d argue this film had a feel of the ever increasing dread of a Jordan Peele film (Get Out and Us specifically) as well as the small screen shenanigans of Charlie Brooker and the twisted mind who continually shines a dystopian light on the future we refuse to believe in Black Mirror. Quite the roll call of, albeit I’m heavily biased, outstanding and thought provoking films and television series from the past quarter of a century and arguably the highest of praise for the film’s director, Olivia Wilde.
Off screen and both before, during and after shooting the final scenes, the film was beset with health and pandemic concerns, breaks in the shooting schedule, the sacking of actor Shia LaBeouf, clashes between director Olivia Wilde and marquee star name Florence Pugh and, lest we forget, the unseemly spitting incident between the film’s other two marquee star names Harry Styles and Chris Pine at the Venice Film Festival. But perhaps the most intriguing piece of gossip from within the Matrix is the director’s admission that the Chris Pine character was inspired by the Canadian author and clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson, whereas I saw Pine’s characterisation as more of a cult leader akin to Philip Seymour Hoffman in the Paul Thomas Anderson directed masterpiece The Master in 2012. Pine may only be in four/five scenes but each is pivotal, each is grandiose and each one an opportunity for the master to preach to his choir. What’s even more intriguing perhaps is that although Chris Pine isn’t predominantly on screen, his constant presence is everywhere.
Chris Pine is “Frank” and the master over everyone, and everything he surveys in the desert town of “Victory” in an unspecified time but which I’d place in a supremely affluent suburbia of the 1950’s. However, this idyllic hideaway from the outside world cannot possibly be real and much like the regular robotic routines of The Truman Show or arguably the Bill Murray acting masterclass in Groundhog Day from 1993, the cracks begin to show, or should that be the loud rumblings and grumblings from the unexplained and secretive work facility nearby? All that can be admitted to is the “development of progressive materials” and that Frank and his team are on a “mission” and “changing the world”.
But whose world is this?
Chris Pine is excellent as the guru cum cult leader and this is by far his best released film of 2022 following the disappointing The Contractor and the much better but flawed All The Old Knives. Among an ensemble cast are three notable stand outs in the shape of Harry Styles (Dunkirk, Eternals), director Olivia Wilde and particularly Florence Pugh. Styles is very much a representation of the males in a film whereby gender and societal role play a huge part in the narrative. Wilde and Pugh are ostensibly best friends and neighbours in a Truman Show landscape of perfectly manicured gardens, bright and well cared for ostentatious homes, colourful clothing, cars and the smiles of a world in the land of make believe.
I guessed the film’s reveal, or certainly the majority of it, very early on, but quixotically it didn’t in any way spoil my enjoyment of a film I’d heartily recommend to you. In amongst the bright and vibrant colours of the cars leaving for work and the wide eyed smiles of the housewives left behind is a psychologically dark tale that takes huge inspiration from some if not all of the films I’ve previously name checked and maybe many more outside of my film watching experience. All is definitely not what it seems in this desert town of Victory and this is brilliantly reinforced by the whirling and swirling camera angles often employed and presumably so to reinforce the whirlwind and unsettling otherworldly nature of this strange town in a strange time. Mirrors, window panes, reflections and crucially, multiples thereof, are constantly shown and again in an effort to disorientate us as the audience as well as the film’s central character “Alice” and the outstanding, outstanding, performance from Florence Pugh.
I’ll end by briefly positing the notion that there are also echoes here of George Orwell’s 1984 and if you replace
“War is Peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength”
with
“There is beauty in control
There is grace in symmetry
We move as one”
you may see the vague connection.
Regardless, Don’t Worry Darling takes inspiration from many and varied sources and is a psychologically disturbing and interesting film.
“Don’t Worry Darling” can also be found within my 7 volumes of “Essential Film Reviews Collection” on Amazon with each and every volume free to read should you have a Kindle “Unlimited” package. All 9 of my self-published books can also be read for free on Kindle (but go on, treat yourself to a paperback or hardback version!) and should you watch my short Youtube video linked in the middle of this article you’ll also find links to my Patreon and Buy Me A Coffee and other ways of supporting my work as an independent writer.
"The Essential Film Reviews Collection VOL.1" - link to Amazon
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.