Don't Worry Darling

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)

An atmospheric relationship drama with interesting performances. Unfortunately, the script is as dodgy as the leading lady's memory. Spending an hour and a half portraying the world and having the interesting, supporting stuff taken away in a moment is the most frustrating part. The motifs of the relationship between men and women in contemporary society are stripped away, killed without proper context. The behaviour of some of the characters is downright baffling. Chris Pine and his departure was supposed to mean what? But Florence Pugh does a great job, and even the bumbling Harry Styles is a sight to behold. Olivia Wilde's brilliant direction saves much of the film, but the crumbling story at the ending trip her up. The visuals are great, though. A more assured script next time and it'll work out. John Powell's score is superb. (18/01/2024)

A shallow, dumb and unspeakably boring variation on The Stepford Wives. The two-hour running time is truly mind-numbing given the emptiness of the whole story. It's also a tacky, fatuous and shallow film, just like the world it's trying to satirize. The high rating on this one is downright shocking to me. (10/02/2024)

(Spoiler alert!) It’s probaly impossible not to compare Don’t Worry Darling with The Stepford Wives and similar films in which an apparently perfect reality is not what it seems. Since the similarity to The Stepford Wives is very obvious, you get a relatively early idea of what the film is actually about, and expect perhaps to get some more fundamental and shocking twist at the end, which doesn't quite happen. Still, I must commend the good production and costume design evoking the 1950s, as well as the unmistakable and truly oppressive soundtrack. Three and a quarter stars! (27/09/2022)

The stolen pile of civilian genre short stories so committed to tricking you that it refuses to answer its own questions. In the first one, there are so many dead ends and vanities that go nowhere that I didn't want to believe until the last second that Olivia Wilde actually wanted to build her entire universe on a single twist. My rating leans mostly on the divine talent of Florence Pugh, who with nothing more than a raised voice or a slight grimace completely wipes the floor with the vainly screaming Harry Styles or the carefree Chris Pine. The direction and the visuals are almost unjustifiably confident, which blurs a few unnecessary lines in the final impression, but the most visible ones (the airplane, the earthquake) cannot be ignored. 50% (04/05/2023)