Movie Review: Don’t Worry Darling

Movie poster for Olivia Wilde’s new movie “Don’t Worry Darling” starring Harry Styles and Florence Pugh. IGN.com

September 30, 2022

Sophie Echternach | News Editor

Arguably the most anticipated movie premiere of the year, Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling is officially here, and, boy, is there a lot to unpack.

Filming for the movie began back in 2020, a difficult time for anyone to be producing new movies. However, the filming was only the beginning of this film’s dramatic journey to the big screen. The Venice Film Festival became the setting for this year’s most talked about drama: the official premiere of Don’t Worry Darling. 

From Harry Styles allegedly spitting on Chris Pine, Olivia Wilde’s and Harry’s minimal interaction, and the feud between Wilde and “Miss Flo” (Florence Pugh), fans were wondering if the drama was all a ploy to add interest to the movie or if this movie was actually doomed from the start. However, fans of Harry Styles will be very happy to know that the movie has, in fact, been a hit, despite the drama. 

This psychological thriller takes place in a town named Victory run by a man named Frank, Chris Pine, and his wife Sally, Gemma Chan. While the backstory of Victory and what happens outside the bounds of the property lines remains unclear, the movie predominantly follows the storyline of husband and wife, Jack, Harry Styles, and Alice, Florence Pugh, as Alice discovers disturbing truths about their lives. 

Couple Jack & Alice stand together during a meeting for community members of Victory. IMDB.com

Victory is a place where all residents are expected to be happy, leading perfect lives where the husbands go to work each day and the wives stay home to cook and clean. As time goes on and one resident voices her suspicions of this utopian society, Alice falls prey to suspicions that everything is not as it seems.

The film takes a creepy twist between flashes of Alice’s unexplained visions, an eerie song that she hums, and odd events such as walls closing in on her, a plane crash, and one scene depicting a resident’s death. 

Producer and actress in the movie, Olivia Wilde creatively weaves seemingly subliminal clues from the very beginning of the movie only to tie them all together at the movie’s end. However, the ending did not leave very many people satisfied because “only the surface level was revealed,” said senior Tessa Campbell. “I would definitely recommend the movie to others, but watching it twice helps because I didn’t catch everything the first time around.”

World famous singer and pop icon, Harry Styles, is definitely the main attraction for most viewers of this rated R movie. Many are also wondering if Styles’ should stick to singing as some scenes were “cringey” and “hard to watch.” 

Freshman Ava Echternach said, “I am practically in love with Harry Styles and everything he does, but I don’t think he should make a career out of acting. Sorry, Harry.” Don’t Worry Darling is nothing new in terms of psychological thrillers, being compared to Wanda Vision and the Stepford Wives, but fans of either would love this new production, and it is recommendable to anyone solely for the star-studded cast.

1 Comment on Movie Review: Don’t Worry Darling

  1. I agree with most of what people said in the article, but at the end when people said Harry’s acting was cringe, I didn’t exactly agree with that. I think the reason a lot of people thought this was because everyone is so used to him being a happy and nice guy so the weren’t expecting him to be this mean guy who is angry and evil. In the end, he tries to kill Alice and I don’t think the viewers were expecting him to do something like that because in real life he would never do anything like that.

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