Review | Venice 2022: Don’t Worry Darling movie review – Florence Pugh, Harry Styles play married couple in Olivia Wilde’s ambitious yet derivative mystery drama
- In an idyllic 1950s American suburb men work on a secret project, their wives welcome them with a drink at the end of the day. Then unexplained things happen
- Yes, you’ve seen this film before. But don’t let that detract from performances of Harry Styles and Florence Pugh as a couple on ‘permanent honeymoon’
3/5 stars
Actress-filmmaker Olivia Wilde follows her well-received directorial debut, Booksmart, with this more ambitious, but ultimately derivative, tale.
At Victory Headquarters, all the men work on a top secret project, the “development of progressive materials” as it’s called. Is it nuclear weapons? The wives don’t ask questions; they just cook, clean and wait for their husbands to return home with a smile and a drink.
Alice, however, starts to question things when life begins to feel off-kilter. In particular, a plane crashes, and no-one acknowledges it. When she climbs a mountain to see the wreckage, she finds a strange domed building. After touching it, the next thing she knows, she’s at home, in bed.
“Have you lost your mind?” asks her mother-of-two neighbour Bunny (Wilde) later on.