Attribution: Photo by Jake Hills on Unsplash
You Don’t Own Me: Film Review of Don’t Worry, Darling
By Geoff Carter
The suburban housewife archetype has been around forever, particularly on television sitcoms. From June Cleaver to Samantha Stephens to Lucy Ricardo to Alice Kramden to Donna Stone—and many, many others, the elegantly dressed, immaculately coiffed, and coolly efficient homemaker was at first a staple, then an icon, and finally became an ironic jab at American culture. In those beautifully furnished suburban homes, the housewife made the meals, dressed the children, kept the house, and (probably, though we’ll never know for sure) satisfied the husband while never breaking a sweat. She wore pearls, full make-up, and high heels at home. She was not real. She was only an illusion.
In the wide world of cinema, this fantasy of a perfect suburban home at times has taken sinister turns. The Stepford Wives is a tale of wives being surreptitiously replaced by perfect and compliant androids. Pleasantville is about a real-life teenager and his sibling who are magically transported into the television town of Pleasantville, where everything is perfect—until they start acting questions. “I Sing the Body Electric” and other episodes of The Twilight Zone echo these themes of domestic perfection and its faults.
Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry, Darling is a somewhat new take on this conceit. The film opens in the idyllic suburb of Victory nestled in a gorgeous desert valley. Set during the late fifties or early sixties—perhaps not coincidentally the golden age of family sitcoms, the homes are paragons of the cool culture of that era. Hi-fis, mid-century furniture, state-of-the-art kitchens, and stylish ranch homes are the norm here. The husbands all work for a mysterious corporation run by Frank (Chris Pine), the leader of the neighborhood who possesses a mesmerizing, almost messianic quality, especially when he speaks of his vision for the future and the town of Victory. The men all leave for work through a mysterious portal at the foot of a mountain in the morning and return as a group at night. They are not allowed to talk about their work, but the wives don’t seem to mind. They are preoccupied with cleaning, cooking, shopping, and keeping their men happy.
The movie opens at a wild dinner party at the home of Bunny’s (Olivia Wilde) home. It is a raucous affair with music, dancing, drinking, and general merry making. While a little over the top for a Ward Cleaver dinner party, it looks like a ton of fun. Bunny’s best friend Alice (Florence Pugh) seems incredibly—almost impossibly—happy. She adores and dotes on her husband Jack (Harry Styles) and revels in the daily routine of cleaning, cooking, and hanging out with the girls. Life is beautiful until one of the wives, Margaret (KiKi Taylor), has an outburst during an event at Frank’s house. Embarrassed, her husband removes her. Alice then sees him and the mysterious Dr. Collins (Timothy Simons) trying to medicate Margaret. And then Alice herself begins experiencing strange unexplainable visions—memories.
During a ballet session in which—strangely—all of the wives participate in a carefully synchronized exercise, Alice has a vision of Margaret asking for help and rushes to her home, where she witnesses her untimely demise and immediate removal by a troop of workers in red coveralls. Alice’s anxieties are allayed by Jack’s reassurances, and she continues with her normal routine until one day, while riding the town trolley, she sees a plane crash. Determined to help, she enters the forbidden territory beyond the town and comes to the headquarters. When she touches the building, Alice experiences strange hallucinations of another life and passes out.
Things go from bad to worse. Alice’s disturbing visions increase and she starts to question Frank and the reasons for the women’s confinement to the town. Her world begins to collapse around her. Frank challenges her. Her husband betrays her, and her friends, even Bunny, turn their backs on her, as she starts to uncover the terrible truth behind her existence, that she is no longer in control of her own identity but which turns out to be only the projection of a collective male fantasy.
Don’t Worry, Darling is a visually striking film. The lush interiors, beautifully rendered exteriors, and the svelte and elegant costuming underscore the foundations of this fantasy, that women are nothing than creatures who adore, serve, and worship them—creatures who nurture and nourish their egos. That they rob the women they say the love of their pasts, identities, memories, and hopes is of no consequence to them.
As Alice, Florence Pugh gives an absolutely stunning performance. At the beginning, her beautifully placid and content relationship with her husband Jack is as innocent and touching as a child’s love for a father (minus the lust), but as buried memories begin resurfacing, her serenity and bonhomie transform into anxiety, fear, and gradually dawning horror. Pugh’s Alice is believable in every aspect of this transformation; her growing bewilderment and the reemerging realization of who she really is are seamlessly joined. She blends aspects of two distinct personalities (past and present) into one, throwing shadows of one persona onto another. It is a remarkable performance. Styles’ performance as Jack pales in comparison to Pugh’s, as does nearly all the rest of the cast.
Other than the stunning visuals and Pugh’s performance, Don’t Worry, Darling is a bit of a disappointment. The screenplay offers nothing new, striking, or insightful in this subgenre, unlike the thematically similar Get Out, a film which slyly offers the viewer social insights that resonate far beyond the theater. The viewer of Don’t Worry, Darling is left wanting more, thinking we’ve seen this situation, we know this story, and we know these people. There is nothing new here. While this is a very pretty movie, and Pugh’s performance is a wonder, Don’t Worry, Darling, unlike the women in it, hasn’t got much beneath the surface.