issue fifty-one
these new levels of worrying are breaking me out: don’t worry darling review
Greetings, all. I hope your weekend has been restful considering the week of Events and Vibes it has followed. Mine was pretty good, and now I am using it to recount the events of my last Friday night — during which I watched the film I personally voted Best Milking of 15 Days of Fame, “Don’t Worry Darling.”
I had avoided this movie as much as possible, if only to observe the events of a disastrous press tour, and this specific video of Olivia Wilde from a safe distance for as long as I could. I was entertained by the spectacle, and didn’t see much use in watching a movie that I was sure would not live up to the ridiculous amounts of hype and hysteria it was receiving. This was the state of affairs until two of my best friends dragged me out to the theater for a movie night, and I decided to see if the work was working.
Briefly, I’ll summarize for those who bested me in staying away from all this mess – beware of spoilers ahead. This film takes audiences on a journey from Alice Chambers’ (played by Florence Pugh) perspective inside the picture-perfect world of Victory, a town subsidized by the mysterious and prestigious Victory Project. Her husband Jack (unfortunately played by Harry Styles) works for this industry and falls in line with the unspoken agreement to conceal the nature of his work, as do all of the men in this town to their patiently waiting wives who tend to their every need. Alice’s curiosity leads her to discover that Victory is truly an immersive simulation that the possessive men surrounding her have forced their wives (real life partners, or otherwise) into.
The general premise of the film is relatively harmless, if not unoriginal. A Stepford Wives remake with Harry Styles as an incel podcast bro is less than intriguing to me, and I didn’t see much appeal in the lack of variation on the presentation of a candy-colored 50s suburbia as – no surprise – a fantasy land for said incels. These core elements of the movie when combined with Wilde’s openly white feminism (more on than in a moment) prepared me for a style-over-substance thriller, which was what I ultimately received.
As Alice begins to unravel the nature of her reality and the ulterior motives of the men around her, she observes and faces a number of unnerving phenomena and events to contribute to her paranoia and insecurity. Some are vague and unexplained (a plane crash in the desert on the outskirts of town), others are there for eerie vibes (random earthquakes that don’t perturb anyone but Alice), and others are left ambiguous as to their reality (moving walls, empty eggshells, etc etc).
Though visually striking and well scored for the audience’s experience viewing them, this combination of all three devices to create an atmosphere of frenetic energy and anxiety is an odd choice that contributed to the overall incomplete feel of the film. Many such instances are abandoned with no revisiting or connection to the core tenets of the “twist” of the film, leaving audiences wondering why they were directed to so many red herrings in the first two acts of the story. The average viewer of this film is not nearly so stupid that they couldn’t comprehend the concept of mystique and suspense in a thriller, but the movie seems to think so anyway. Ambiguousness and dead ends are only helpful to a point, and this film had so many of them that they took away from the allure of its actual mystery.
The same phenomenon persists in the character development of anyone who isn’t one of the two leads. Alice’s housewife friends are scarcely more than their snappy one-liners (save for Wilde’s self insert, Bunny) and the husbands that flank Jack are mostly comedic relief. Even Chris Pine’s Frank, the tycoon presumably running this whole circus, is wasted with little gravity or background other than the fact that his coin from his Jordan Peterson core podcast is funding this place. Gemma Chan’s Shelley is vacant and vaguely girlbossy when she kills Frank in order to take? over? the simulation (her motives and intentions are very unclear, and never addressed explicitly or otherwise)? When it comes to side characters, the performers who made the most of the task of filling very empty shoes came out as the real winners. I’d actually consider Jack’s coffee mug to be a more prominent presence on the screen than, like, Violet.
One doesn’t need to wonder very long or search very far for the reason that so many parts of this film don’t make sense, or seem to have been forgotten on the editing floor. Kiki Layne, acclaimed actress who plays Margaret (Alice’s former best friend and conveniently, the only speaking Black character in this universe) in the film spoke out regarding the fact that most of her character’s scenes were cut, as were those of Ari’el Stachel, who played her character’s husband. This explains the void of missing space every time Margaret is mentioned and depicted; what remains of Layne’s nuanced portrayal of the canary in a coal mine (also conveniently the Black woman who warns everyone and dies first) is maybe 3 original scenes that are flashbacked to hell and back and include enough lines to count on one hand; Ari’el speaks one line in which his back is turned to the camera.
This literal and figurative erasure makes me more mad than I’m ready to unpack right now, especially when one considers that the majority of lines and scenes that were stripped from Layne were handed to Wilde herself, to furnish the role of her own character. If you’re going to be vaguely racist and the entire plot and pacing of your film suffers from it, I have very little sympathy left to give. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Besides the waste of such a talented ensemble, one of this film’s worst transgressions is that of Harry Styles’ casting. I’ll be frank: I don’t like Styles, nor do I enjoy his performance on screen. I believe his casting as the lead of a heavy, long psychodramatic thriller was an egregious misstep, and his performance was distractingly poor. I say distractingly, because in every scene he shared with Florence Pugh, longtime skilled practicer of the shriek-and-frown power duo, I was literally taken out of the scene by the absurdity of his acting — and the giggles and snickers surrounding me in the theater were evidence of the fact that I wasn’t the only one exhibiting such reactions. The nonsensical accent, the carrot nibbling, the comical outrage and crazy eyes, the ten minutes of barrel jumps under Chris Pine’s watchful eye, good gracious. If I was Harry Styles I have to would release my job immediately.
The choice to place one of the world’s biggest popstars with an increasingly rabid fanbase of millions in a role that requires complete immersion and gravitas beyond Styles’ years and experience was quite simply unwise. There was a whole industry of dudes out there practically engineered to do “sleazy charming evil”, and instead we got…what we got. I can’t even envision what a more skilled Jack would have brought to the table here, but I do know that the crux of the entire plot suffered because of the Jack this film gave us. The entire world has kind of been universally dogging Styles for this one, and I feel kinda bad for him in a “this is embarrassing” way, but don’t say we didn’t warn you.
At the core of this film, I truly don’t feel that any lasting impact has been made because of it. Even the movie’s attempts at addressing the factors that create and enable incel spaces like Victory (male insecurity and alt-right radicalization) and individuals like Frank (internalized misogyny on the part of the women who enable their actions) are hollow and surface level, and the entire concept of Victory and the world it exists in are painfully race-blind. I’m not surprised at this, given that this film is coming from the creator of “Booksmart”, but I’m left genuinely wondering how this project might have soared and achieved something innovative in the right hands a number of cycles up the creative command chain. At least it looked pretty, I guess.
In more encouraging news, we have 300 subscribers here as a part of this newsletter community!
I am grateful for each and every one of you, and so glad you have chosen to engage with me and my work. Special thanks to my besties out there recommending this newsletter, over 40 of my subscribers have come from your incredible spaces! As always, if you ever want to share feedback, thoughts on a given piece, or just say hi, feel free to comment or email me at literateleah@gmail.com. Love you, and I’ll see you next week!
such a great and comprehensive review!! delightful to read as always, and saved me the ₹1000+ i would've spent on this film (and the mandatory theatre popcorn). congrats on the completely deserved 300 subs! here's to many more <3
so wonderfully written <33 you recapped this mess much more thoughtfully than it deserved and it was a lovely read