I survived Don't Worry Darling

This contains spoilers and Olivia Wilde apologism (but not too much).

Two weeks ago, my roommates and I reserved our seats at the 34th street AMC to watch Don’t Worry Darling make its worldwide theatrical debut. Finally, the night was Thursday.

We were all skeptical. We as in my roommates, but also, we as in the world. The drama sh*tstorm that’s continuing past release has clouded any sort of normalcy this movie could ever have, and I saw one too many TikToks of Harry saying weird things for me to be comfortable going into that theatre.

I don’t think I’m breaking any news by saying that I’m a massive Harry Styles fan. I’m afraid to ever find out the amount of money I (or should I say, my mom) have spent on him since 2013, and I don’t want any reason to not love him. I don’t want to get the ick, I don’t want to stop being a fan, I don’t want my life to change like that. Hence forth, reason #1 why I was scared.

Reason #2 was because of Olivia Wilde. Shia, Shia, Shiiiiaaaaaaaa. Miss Flo. Everything.

I saw Olivia Wilde speak at SCAD, my alma mater, in 2019 before a screening of Booksmart, one of my favorite movies. She was extremely intelligent, funny, warm, and I also thought the movie was brilliant. It made me really excited that a female director was coming to share her vision and give the room full of us any sort of advice, even if I wasn’t a film student.

Considering how much I admired her and her work after this, I was excited for this to come out. And then everything else happened that we don’t need to rehash, because if you have a phone and an Instagram or TikTok account, you know, and I’m not breaking any news here on Coffee Order.

After everything else, I was still excited, but again, scared. I wanted the movie to be fantastic and shut everyone up, I wanted to not believe what I read because I wanted to give Olivia the benefit of the doubt, and I wanted to still love Harry Styles at the end of it all.

Alas, allow me to give my full, comprehensive review of Don’t Worry Darling.

SPOILERS START HERE.

The first thirty minutes of the film are basically setting the scene. We see Jack (Harry Styles) and Alice (Florence Pugh) as a basically sickeningly in-love couple with their neighbors/friends, including Wilde’s character, Bunny and her husband portrayed by Nick Kroll, dancing drunk and having a good old 50s time. Alice, Bunny, and their fellow housewives live in a company town for the Victory Project, where their husbands off to their mysterious jobs every morning, drive off into the desert that outskirts the town, and while they work, the gals truly play. They go to the pool, they go to the mall and charge things to their household accounts, they ride the trolly, what could ever go wrong?

The 50s scenery, set design, and costume was truly the best part of this movie. I know that they filmed a lot of it in Palm Springs, and it made for an absolutely beautiful movie to watch. The houses were amazing, the colors were visually engaging, and each shot was really well thought through.

Alice starts to grow suspicious of her seemingly perfect life when she witnesses Margaret (KiKi Layne), a fellow housewife, speaking out against the Victory Project and their Jim Jones-esque leader, Frank (portrayed by Chris Pine), and the repercussions she faces. Everyone calls her crazy, ill, and wrong, while Alice starts to believe her claims of mind control and wrongdoing on Frank’s part. Alice even starts to see things herself, including a plane crash in the desert where the Victory Project is headquartered, and embarks out into the desert like Margaret once did to see for herself.

The film then takes us on a journey of Alice only seeing more and more, seemingly getting flashbacks to an alternate life of her and Jack, and many motifs of eyeballs. Every time she goes to Jack about something being wrong, he insists everything is fine, and that they are in fact, luck to be there (cue the TikTok). Everything comes to a head when Alice goes head to head with Frank at a dinner party hosted by Jack and Alice after Jack gets promoted at the Victory Project, where Alice accuses Frank of controlling them, but Frank still gets everyone, including Jack, to believe that she’s crazy. Frank outs Alice’s trip to the desert, and Jack sets up for her to be taken away for electroshock therapy in order to make her “better”.

This is where we get the insane plot twist that made me once again believe in Olivia Wilde.

During the therapy, Alice’s old life is revealed. She’s shocked back into reality, where she’s a doctor in current times, picking up extra shifts to support her and her unemployed partner, an extremely less handsome and very scary Jack. He stays home all day after losing his job, researching and eventually joining the Victory Project simulation, where he isn’t a loser that depends on his wife or girlfriend, but a breadwinning, handsome 50s husband, who can give Alice the “perfect” life. We find out that Jack has put Alice (unsure if that’s her name in the real world) in a simulation against her will, and that by using tools on their eyes, they’re able to live in an alternate universe.

I can’t be 100% certain, but my take on this was that Jack is someone who fell down a Reddit rabbit hole when he got fired, spent all of his time online for a long time, and eventually stumbled across this simulation created by “Frank”, where sad, lonely, Q-Anon adjacent men can place their wives or girlfriends under and have the perfect life, outside of their loser-y ones now. This was an absolutely ABSURD and great plot twist to me, some sort of social commentary on the world today. The men can be who they want to be without trying in the real world, and control the women like they were once able to in the 50s. Jack chose to join, and was able to craft their perfect life.

The movie ends with Alice going back into the simulation, confronting Jack who admits what he’s done, but begs her to stay. Once he becomes aggressive and tries to trap her, she kills him. But, this also made her kill him in real life, which trapped her in the simulation. Bunny comes into the house after hearing the hoopla, and tells Alice that she’s known all along and chose to live in the Victory Project after losing her real life children, where she can have them back, as well as the perfect life. She tells Alice to run to headquarters, as it’s the only way out before the henchmen of Frank’s will kill her too. The last scene is her making it to the mountaintop, and a black screen with Pugh gasping for air is the last thing we hear. I assume she woke up from the simulation and is back in real life, but who knows.

Hopefully that synopsis made sense. I’m not a movie critic, only a Wikipedia user.

Overall, I’d give the movie a solid 7.5/10, perhaps even higher. I wish beforehand that I watched reference movies that Wilde and the screenwriters used, such as The Stepford Wives, The Truman Show, etc., only because I feel like there were a lot of great references that I missed. I don’t think that Harry deserved all of the hate, especially because once it’s revealed that he was the one who put Alice under and has been lying, it makes sense as to why he was so odd and almost dopey (albeit, incredibly hot).

Florence. MF. PUGH. This performance was unlike anything I’ve ever seen in an actress. It was reminiscent of Midsommar, but on a whole other level. She went from loving, soft, and agreeable in the beginning, to fierce and incredibly strong, overall carrying this story to greatness. No one else could’ve played this role the way that she did, so I’m glad Olivia chose her over Shia.

I didn’t see how Shia LeBouf could’ve played this role anyway. I was left believing that Jack was diluted by the internet, genuinely believing that he was giving Alice the perfect life. If it were Shia, I would believe that it was malicious, and more similar to Frank’s character than who Jack was supposed to be.

I love a psychological thriller, and I truly did not see the simulation plot twist coming. That was really exhilarating to me. I also love Palm Springs and the time period they chose, so that was also really great. I also love cult-y things. And I love Harry Styles. And Florence Pugh. So for me, the movie was fabulous.

I could see where people are left with a bad taste in their mouth with some unanswered questions, and I would like to request a prequal in order to understand. How did Jack get Alice involved in the simulation? She was strapped to the bed with an I.V. and crazy things on her eyes, so how did she get there? What are the logistics of the simulation? Are all men in Victory simulation leaders in their household, or did Jack create them? Frank’s wife, portrayed by Gemma Chan, took over at the end of the movie, so what was her role in the simulation? Also, what the f*ck was everything about the red plane?!

The true question I was left with was, would I stay in the simulation with Jack? My answer? Yes. I absolutely would stay in a perfect, 50s simulation with Harry Styles. Is this a bad, anti-feminist answer? Yes. Maybe I’m stressed from work and the hustle and bustle of NYC living, but a Palm Springs simple life with an extremely hot husband sounds fabulous to me. But, I also understand why Alice wanted out.

The drama of it all also makes me kind of sad. The sound design and score was incredible, I previously mentioned the set and costumes being immaculate, and I truly thought that Olivia Wilde directed this movie straight to the moon. But, it’ll all be eclipsed by this PR nightmare for the rest of eternity. I know that Rotten Tomatoes roasted DWD to no end, but to me, it was worth the overpriced AMC ticket, and I’m looking forward to watching again in order to look back on what I missed, knowing what I know now. I also feel badly because I truly don’t believe that any male director would ever face this sort of firestorm, which is most definitely true because many have done far worse than anything alleged on this set without any sort of Daily Mail Snapchat graphic.

All we can hope for now is that “With You All The Time”, the song that Alice hums throughout and eventually breaks the simulation for her, is sung by Pugh and Styles at the Oscars or something.

For me, Olivia Wilde is 2/2, showing that she’s not just a mastermind behind drug-induced Barbie fantasies, but that she’s also capable of crafting a beautifully messed up alternate universe. And making Harry Styles fall in love with her on set. Good for her!