The media circus that has surrounded Olivia Wilde’s sophomore effort is the most interesting thing about this production. There, I said it. This is not the harshest criticism I have of the film, nor is it the most important, but I think it’s the most obvious thing that needs to be addressed. While some movies ascend to classic status because of the celebrity drama that goes about on sets, this simply will not.
Which is an absolute shame. This is a perfectly fine film. I might even classify it as good. In a worse year, it would easily earn a few nominations at the Oscars, and probably will despite stiff competition. But I fear the legacy will be less cinematic and more tabloid.
The performances are, with one exception, all good. Florence Pugh walks away with her most showy credit to date (not her best, but certainly excellent). KiKi Layne is stunning but underused, Harry Styles is competent, Olivia Wilde gives herself the fun role, and Chris Pine plays a decent, menacing presence. Nobody embarrasses themselves.
Although Gemma Chan continues her streak of being a beautiful statue.
To end the spoiler-free section of the review, I’ll say simply that this is a story with a few too many concepts that don’t quite gel together. I described it on Twitter as a Black Mirror episode, but I want to be clear that it’d be one of the worst.
It’s a script level issue, and one that probably could have been fixed in the edit. And maybe it was, considering Layne’s public statements that she had most of her scenes cut. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that keeping to the shooting script would have led to a much more frantic version that’s an hour longer and worse for the additions.
To summarise the plot (spoilers now), this is the story of a housewife named Alice (Pugh) and her sneaking suspicion the idyllic, retro suburb she lives in is…wrong. She attempts to push past her growing anxiety and paranoia, but after her neighbour Margaret (Layne) slits her throat and falls off her roof, she reject the stories she’s being told. One failed reprograming later, she finally escapes what is actually a virtual simulation set up by her husband (Styles).
Also, Gemma Chan stabs Chris Pine at the end.
Screenwriter Katie Silberman (in her second collaboration with Wilde) was clearly influenced by The Stepford Wives. In many ways, the best stuff in the film is just the film retelling that classic story. The tense drama of something being wrong in a “perfect life” is where both directing and acting peak. Pugh’s welling eyes as her husband Jack is brought on stage is a high point, as everything comes together exquisitely.
The deflating of the twist shortly after, by contrast, ends a long series of moments where the film’s worst traits keep peeking through. The scenes in the real world feel somehow more contrived than most of what we’ve been viewing of the simulation. The small cuts to what is just a projected video playing over Pugh’s body in her bed feels cheaper for the knowledge of what they are.
The trouble is, without the context of how, the what and why just don’t land.
Part of the problem is that these scenes require a lot more from Styles than he’s been asked in the rest of his films. Without the excuse of pop artifice behind him, he’s left floundering in the most confusing segment of the script, rushing through backstory. It isn’t a bad performance, and I do have some sympathy for him here. Nobody else is able to help to carry these moments, and when you pair bad writing with an unexperienced performer, it’s just unfortunate. But considering how much he manages to do right in the preceding near two hours, I have hope that he could probably find success elsewhere.
He and Pugh certainly have chemistry, as she does with literally everyone else. But to his credit, they bounce off each other well, and it really does sell their underlying romance, necessary to hold together the final act’s mess. It’s a testament to everything that came before it that you could even think for a second that Alice would forgive Jack. It’s a split second, but you do doubt the ending that is clearly on its way.
It's a beautiful film too. Warm and bright, inviting despite the candy-coloured artificiality of the world surrounding. A useless scene of the wives shopping is probably my favourite use of colour, despite my feeling that it should have been cut immediately. There’s a certain level of showmanship to the cinematography throughout too, the camera focused on Pugh, following her through the crowd, imitating the viewers in many ways. The film feels about 30% built on closeups of her face.
But again, that ending. It runs together like nonsense, as if they filmed too much and realised, shit, we’ve hit the two-hour mark. So much happens that clearly doesn’t work in context. So much more is forgotten. Margaret’s child, and Margaret herself, are left in the past an hour ago. Wilde getting to add her voice to the scramble, in a second twist that is earned but unneeded, with random backstory that doesn’t track with the preceding performance. Gemma Chan kills Chris Pine in what feels like the ending of a subplot left on the cutting room floor, a poor imitation of Glenn Close in The Stepford Wives (2004). Pugh driving and running away is great trailer fodder, but the chase scene feels oddly empty.
On one hand, I’m glad this isn’t some conspiracy of war and mutations and whatever else the movie hints at. This easily could have been American Horror Story: Apocalypse levels of disingenuous bullshit. But being better than bad isn’t the same thing as being good.
In retrospect, these are the same issues Wilde had with Booksmart. Great concepts, a knack for working with actors, but issues in editing. So many moments in both films could have been tightened with an eye towards story and pacing over performance, and that balance is something you get when you’ve worked for a long time. Don’t Worry Darling is worse in many ways, but it’s also a much bigger and more unyielding production.
I don’t think I’ll put my hopes in Spiderwoman, but maybe with a different script, Wilde will improve into the genuinely great director I know she can be. But, for now, we have a product that in five years’ time will be referenced on TMZ as the movie where Harry Styles and his (ex?) girlfriend met. And nobody in or around the film deserves that.
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