Don't Worry Darling

Don’t Worry Darling would have a lot more power as a (shorter, for God's sake) episode of Black Mirror. As it is, it's an overlong and quite easy to see through metaphor, pulled off by the wonderful Florence Pugh. Thanks to her, thanks to Olivia Wilde's direction and thanks to the beautifully kitschy production design, the two hours pass quite briskly, and it doesn't matter so much that the ending doesn't have a great twist. (14/11/2022)

Olivia Wilde and her ambitious psychological thriller evoking The Stepford Wives should have been the gem of the year, but it's just a decent genre flick. The setting in the 1950s is very nice, the utopian experimental community is an attractive subject, Florence Pugh is both sexy and a great actress, and there's a nice final twist with Chris Pine that has something to it, but somehow I was expecting more. When best scene in thriller is Pugh's oral sex on a table doesn't feel enough to me. I found the whole film to be a little too restrained. There is no violence, no proper escalation of the situation. The trailer made me expect downright mind fuck scenes playing with the viewer's mind, shocking and fascinating at the same time and unfortunately Olivia fails to do that. I probably had too high expectations, but it's not a bad film, it's definitely worth seeing, I wasn't bored, there are bright moments and strong performances, and the visuals and atmosphere are also very good. In the cinema it might have enhanced the experience to a stronger rating,at home only for a strong 3 stars. 65%. (09/11/2022)

Neither the directorial inventiveness of Olivia Wilde nor the acting brilliance of Florence Pugh can save this one, because apart from the first 30 minutes it's the most arid rip-off of any film you've ever heard in connection with this. Go ahead and plop in any film from the "grapevine" and answer for yourself the question of whether you need to see the ones you've already seen a hundred times again. The retro look, the music, the costumes, and the dolly shots are all fine (the first quarter really provides the biggest highlights, after that it goes downhill hard), but what can you do when the whole thing is horrifyingly sterile and unimaginative. Hopefully Olivia will have better luck choosing the script the third time around, because she's a fine director. [40%] (17/10/2022)

A pastel femme matrix. It’s fine that the poster entices viewers to a sweet romance with Harry Styles. Surprised female viewers will get a more sophisticated thriller metaphor for endless inner discontent and the utopian illusion of the “perfect life”. For a second directorial feature of Olivia Wilde, Don’t Worry Darling is a highly ambitious work relying on excellent artists in the filmmaking crew (cinematographer, editor, composer). Florence Pugh heads up the acting, Styles carries the romance, and it’s very nice to watch. Only the point that it makes isn’t in any way original; it’s actually not even appropriate. And in the final build-up, it all somehow falls apart both in the connections and in the emotional experience. (29/09/2022)

As a mystery thriller one-shot from The Twilight Zone, totally fine. It's beautiful to look at, great craftsmanship, and I have a soft spot for Florence Pugh, she improves the rating of every film by at least one star. On the other hand, if their ambitions were higher, well we can’t speak of a success. The concept is fine and could have been the basis for a more substantial piece of filmmaking, but it would have needed from sharper edges and a more focused script (actually, it's a terribly perverse outcome, but Wilde and the writers failed to fully capitalize on its power). The handling of the reveal of the twist seems a bit shallow, and if you start digging into the individual scenes, you'll find that they may not even make much sense in the end – I really don’t understand what the plane wreck was doing there. 7/10 (03/10/2022)