Olivia Wilde keeps things interesting in her first career foray into the director’s chair.
There’s been more real-world drama surrounding the release of Don’t Worry Darling than there is around some things that matter. It could have acted as a detractor for its cast, but it seems to have worked the other way around for some.
It wouldn’t be a Hollywood star’s debut directing gig if they didn’t give themselves an acting role, but it’s not Wilde’s on-screen chops that elevates Don’t Worry Darling.
It’s her protagonists.
Alice (Florence Pugh) has married Jack (Harry Styles), and the pair are living in the idealized community of Victory, an experimental company town housing the men who work for the top-secret Victory Project and their families.
Pugh is who really carries the film. She delivers such a roaring main performance that her fellow cast-mates pale in comparison. In a story where 1950's societal optimism is the rug under which misogyny is swept, Pugh elevates what can often be a predictable script.
She carries large chunks of the film more or less single-handedly.
While the husbands spend every day inside the Victory Project Headquarters, working on the "development of progressive materials," their wives get to spend their time enjoying the beauty, luxury, and debauchery of their community. It becomes a feminist parable – one which could easily have lost itself up its own bum if not for Pugh’s anchoring.
Life is perfect, with every resident's needs met by the company. All they ask in return is discretion and unquestioning commitment to the Victory cause. But when cracks in Alice’s idyllic life begin to appear, exposing flashes of something much more sinister lurking beneath the attractive façade, she can't help questioning exactly what they're doing in Victory, and why.
Just how much is Alice willing to lose to expose what's really going on in this paradise?
Don’t Worry Darling (M) is opening at Bowen Summergarden Cinema on Friday, October 7 at 6.45pm.
