Don’t Worry Darling

Florence Pugh excels as a Californian housewife in a 1950s’ utopia made for male gratification.

Apron-stringed: Florence Pugh as Alice

Any film dipping its toes into the 1950s of California is inviting the viewer into a familiar if otherworldly universe. The reality here is of a primary-coloured parallel world of blue skies, cocktails and swimming pools. As the men drive off to work in unison of a morning, the wives buckle down to the housework, all to the sound of Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald and The Platters. Being a film from the pen of Katie Silberman and the directorial voice of Olivia Wilde (who collaborated on Booksmart), this utopian diorama is a male fantasy ripe for the pricking. At the centre of the oasis is the loved-up couple Jack and Alice Chambers (Harry Styles, Florence Pugh) who can’t get enough of each other, even at the expense of the tableware and the curious gaze of a male colleague. Perhaps strangely, the slavish wives have no knowledge of their husbands’ professional days, spent working on a classified undertaking known as the Victory Project. It’s nothing to worry their little heads about, though, so long as dinner is on the table by the time of their husbands’ return.

All this is rendered with considerable aplomb by Wilde, who also plays the key character of Bunny, Alice's best friend and neighbour, who dotes on her two children. Add in a terrific American Graffiti-style soundtrack and the glistening cinematography of Matthew Libatique, and you have a cinematic treat – up to a point. At about forty-five minutes in, the film begins to feel like it is treading water, as if waiting for a narrative thread with which to pull us into its darker intent. Luckily, Florence Pugh is sensational as the all-American housewife, both vibrant and carnal, and then questioning, as certain factors start failing to add up. Another neighbour (KiKi Layne) is beginning to behave oddly and Alice is not convinced by the reassuring rationalisation of the community’s elders. Then Alice, too, starts seeing things that maybe she shouldn’t…

Adapted from a screenplay by Carey Van Dyke and Shane Van Dyke, grandsons of Dick Van Dyke, the film inevitably prompts comparisons to The Stepford Wives, with a hint of George Clooney’s paranoid black comedy Suburbicon (2017). But the pay-off barely repays the patience of the audience and there are problems along the way. As Jack, Harry Styles just can’t match the star wattage of his co-star and is by turns awkward and unconvincing, with a fluctuating accent that distracts from the drama. And not everything seems to make sense, with sequences of repetitive satire knocking heads with surreal horror, as if to throw a line to an audience wanting more. When the chips start to tumble it is too little too late, and all the style in the world cannot cushion the disappointment and WTF factor. Yet Pugh makes the journey almost worthwhile. Again, the English actress displays a whole new set of colours to her thespian palette and it’s a bravura turn her devotees will be citing for years to come.

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Cast: Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Olivia Wilde, Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne, Sydney Chandler, Nick Kroll, Chris Pine, Asif Ali, Kate Berlant, Timothy Simons, Douglas Smith, Ari'el Stachel, Dita Von Teese, Steve Berg, Daisy Sudeikis. 

Dir Olivia Wilde, Pro Olivia Wilde, Katie Silberman, Miri Yoon and Roy Lee, Screenplay Katie Silberman, Ph Matthew Libatique, Pro Des Katie Byron, Ed Affonso Gonçalves, Music John Powell, Costumes Arianne Phillips, Sound Larry Zipf. 

New Line Cinema/Vertigo Entertainment-Warner Bros.
122 mins. USA. 2021. UK and US Rel: 23 September 2022. Cert. 15.