Don’t worry about seeing it darling, you’re not missing much

“Why are we here, we shouldn’t be here!" Is the introduction of the film’s tension, and all I could do was think the exact same thing. 

“Why are we here, we shouldn’t be here!" Is the introduction of the film’s tension, and all I could do was think the exact same thing. 

For those who have been bludgeoned by the behind the scenes drama of Don’t Worry Darling, cast your minds away from visions of spitting and body language analysis of the red carpet.

It’s difficult to review a film you feel like you’ve already watched across every 16x9 screen dissecting the antics of the cast. Nonetheless, we shall proceed.

With the “bird's eye view” as director Olivia Wilde’s stylistic shot of choice, pardon me from proceeding to shit all over the two-hour-long film.

Taking place in a utopian world, Don’t Worry Darling tracks Alice and Jack Chambers (Florence Pugh and Harry Styles) as they navigate cul de sac chaos in the pursuit of happiness.

The film begins in a high-octane party-set pace, pulling no punches for its homage to Mad Men, where dirty martinis are balanced atop the heads of seemingly clueless housewives, as their husbands gesticulate feigned sentiments of love and praise. 

It’s charming, visually stunning from the get-go, and confirms that the entire film will feel like watching a never-ending trailer.

It is stretched over an ambitious plot that lacked substance or suspense, but did have the semblance of a moral backbone fractured by an absence of cast chemistry and storyline subtlety.

Don’t Worry Darling draws a lot from the cinematic cannon of the surrealist, white picket fence subgenre - Blue Velvet, Black Swan, Gaslight - delivering a tone-deaf depiction of modern capitalism. 

As we follow Pugh’s plight to unravel the cavernous secrets of her husband’s work, we experience a film set in a sun-baked paradise with a half-baked message, suffocated by the cling-wrap cosmos Wilde depicts. 

Where the plot falls short in its message - although its attempts are beaten into the viewer with fourth-wall-breaking glances - is that it offers nothing new to what success in a modern world really is.

READ: Every crazy thing that went down with the cast at the Venice Film Festival

The whole team at the Venice Film Festival

Watching a film about yet another glamorous company hiding dark secrets is not a jarring circumstance, but simply a reality we’ve all accepted every time we’ve used an app that requires personal data we’d seldom share with a trusted friend.

Had the film been released in a pre-pandemic world, perhaps it would be received more generously.

But in a post #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and TikTok activism atmosphere, a film that critiques our enslavement to the creature comforts of capitalism through a one-dimensional view of humanity is too myopic to be considered “good”.

The acting is not necessarily bad, aside from Harry Styles who for lack of a more apt phrase, sucks.

But, the engagement of the rest of the ensemble pales behind a disjointed script.

Regularly, characters are reduced to spelling out the subtext of the storyline, best captured by the initial antagonist Margaret (played by KiKi Layne). Layne’s character abruptly shouts in the midst of a garden-party cult-like ceremony “why are we here, we shouldn’t be here!”

It’s the introduction of the film’s tension, and all I could do was think the exact same thing.

Chris Pine, who plays the enigmatic head of corporation VICTORY (think a mix between Amazon and Goop with a ‘50s backdrop) stands out as the only character who manages to scrape a few banger one-liners throughout the ordeal.

It would not be a spoiler to say the film is “all about control” be it social or economic, as it’s regularly announced by actors between scenes laced with Manhattan cocktails and overbearing symbolism, delivered most appropriately by Styles tap-dancing like a monkey at the command of his boss. 

Granted, a film like Don’t Worry Darling is always going to be enjoyable, if not for the star-studded cast and offset drama, as it taps into the most basic human fascination of what it means to live a truly charmed existence. Oh, and that exquisite Truman Show-esque set.

Perhaps Don’t Worry Darling is an allegory for Eve eating the apple, Adam attempting to please a higher power, and God punishing us, the audience?

Either way, it left a sour taste in my mouth.