Reviewed by Celeste Gibson ||

In an August interview with Variety magazine, Olivia Wilde states that her sophomore directorial project, Don’t Worry Darling, was focused on female pleasure. The director stated that this fact was exemplified mainly by the sexual scenes that were wholly focused on the woman deriving pleasure, not the men. However, the scenes of female pleasure were sabotaged by the overall message and plot of the Stepford Wives inspired movie. As the plot progresses, it is revealed that almost every woman in the town of Victory is there against their will. They have been restrained and kidnapped to play a 1950’s homemaker simulation with their captors and ‘partners’. Wilde stated, “I don’t enjoy or feel inspired by stories that oversimplify feminism. It’s so much more complicated,” – Variety. However, simplifying is exactly what Don’t Worry Darling suffers from.

Don’t Worry Darling is heavily inspired by the 2004 version of the Stepford Wives, which was a major tonal and plot departure from the 1972 and 1975 versions of the same name. The twist ending of the 2004 version reveals that the events of the movie, where women were implanted with microchips that turned them into ideal women and homemakers, was orchestrated by Claire, played by the iconic Glenn Close, instead of the men of Stepford.  While there were obvious flaws to the 2004 version, at least it allows Claire to explain why she is subjecting fellow women to kidnapping and torture. I do want to state that I do not think that a movie must result in a happy ending for women to necessarily be considered feminist. Women do not even have to be morally correct to be feminist. However, women must be actual people. They have to be three-dimensional; they must have a character, have motivations, have a clear arc, have something to do and discuss besides the male characters. Women must be active participants in the story. Don’t Worry Darling does not succeed at this. Shelly, played by Gemma Chan, remains fairly silent throughout the entire film. She instructs ballet instructions early on in the film, makes a speech in favor of her husband in front of other Victory citizens, and belittles Alice in support of her husband. In the last several minutes of the movie, she kills her husband Frank, played by Chris Pine, for some reason. It is assumed that she is the actual brains of the Victory Project, but the last scene we have of her is sighing about how stupid her now-deceased husband was. Shelly is not allowed to lead, in part because the movie is not given enough time before it ends. The audience is not given any explanations or any inferences as to what had happened. 

To be concise, the movie feels incomplete. The movie ends with Alice escaping the simulation into the real world. She has just killed her husband and has managed to leave behind men trying to kill her in order to silence the truth about the Victory Project. However, we leave Alice not empowered, but literally and figuratively still trapped. She awakens still chained to her bed next to her dead captor. While not only having to escape after an extended time with suboptimal nutrition and no physical activity, Alice must also now reveal the truth about the Victory Project but must come to terms with the fact that her husband had stolen her life and taken her away from everyone and everything she had known. She must also now contend with the fact that her recent sexual encounters have been without her actual consent. Perhaps a more fleshed-out movie would have lingered on this fact, would have addressed this to truly be  considered a ‘feminist’ movie. Interestingly enough, the bulk of the movie is setting up how unsettlingly perfect everything is in the town of Victory. The main plot practically only happens in flashbacks and during the last thirty minutes of the film. 

Something interesting that the film does show is that Jack, played by Harry Styles, is suffering under the system he put himself and his wife in. Perhaps the most visceral scene throughout run-time was towards the ending where Alice remembers that Jack has kidnapped her. The man is begging on his knees, into Alice’s stomach for forgiveness, for redemption. He is clutching her so tightly that we hear a loud crack reverberate and Alice’s face twists into panic and fear as Jack will not let go of her. It isn’t until Alice kills him that Jack finally releases Alice. In the Variety article, it is discussed how Styles plays Jack as straddling the line between love and obsession. Previously, Alice had been a busy surgeon and the main breadwinner of the household. While she is at work, Jack listens to the teachings of the Victory Project, supposedly led by Frank. Jack is threatened by the fact that Alice is the dominant person and reverts to harmful nuclear family roles in order to regain control over his wife. He is radicalized, but even in the now ‘traditional’ family unit, Jack confesses that he is miserable having to constantly work to pay for staying in the Victory Project as he continues to barely make enough money for rent and food. This is contrasted to when Alice had a successful career and they lived in a comfortable apartment and could afford necessities. Jack is wholly responsible for his own situation. However, he does not release Alice from her captivity, instead he has her “recalibrated” and when that fails, he begs for her forgiveness. Even when he knows that he is clearly in the wrong, Jack tries to convince himself and Alice that he did the right thing. Wilde stated that when researching for the film, she really focused on “scouring 4chan, studying YouTube algorithms, researching groupthink perpetuated by social media and incel leaders,” – Variety. Wilde compares the community of men who insist on upholding patriarchal standards to a cult and Jack acts like a radicalized member of a cult. When he gets a “promotion”, Jack tap-dances in front of everyone at Frank’s insistence. The scene compares Jack’s floppy tap-dancing to that of a puppet, which he is. Jack represents the men of the internet who are puppets of leaders that insist on devaluing women. However, I think the message loses a lot of its resonance when it is revealed that Frank is not the true leader of the Victory Project. The film almost seems to lean away from fully committing to condemning white men of being misogynistic and upholding patriarchal values. 

While psychological thrillers like Don’t Worry Darling are meant to leave you with questions, to depart with the audience gasping, Don’t Worry Darling does not allow its audience time to really absorb the story. The film is much more concerned with setting up how aesthetic everything is and glances over the actual plot, thus losing the thrilling aspect of a psychological thriller. It is such a shame, because the story had the initial hype and the resources to open up discussions about female body autonomy and about how harmful the patriarchy is for everyone. There was so much good material to work with. It is like when people are manufacturing songs, they try to recreate a viral song without really understanding what made it an artistically good song, or even the technique behind sound production. Don’t Worry Darling was much more of a tragedy than anything else.