(Image credit: dontworrydarling.net)

In September, the world saw the light of a long-awaited movie by actress and female director, Olivia Wilde. Although she has only directed one movie before (“Booksmart” in 2019), “Don’t Worry Darling” claimed lots of criticism before it was even released. With 305 professional reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and only 38% of them being positive, could this be the worst movie released in 2022?

A Little Summary

It’s the fifties, people are dressed in pastel colours and driving around in their fancy Cadillacs. In a little desert town called Victory, Alice (Florence Pugh) spends most of her time with her girlfriends, living a luxurious life, and taking care of her house. In the meantime, her husband Jack (Harry Styles), alongside other men, work on a secret project. The whole community is led by Jack’s boss, Frank (Chris Pine). Everything seems too good to be true. However, it doesn’t take long for Alice to start experiencing strange cracks in her ‘perfect’ life - she begins to question what is actually going on in the community, and what kind of secret project the men are working on.

My Review

Naturally, as a fan of Harry Styles, I had to go see the movie myself. Although I had heard about the drama surrounding the movie, I had no idea what it was actually about and therefore, didn’t know what to expect. I sunk into the Relax Seats at Pathé Breda and let myself get carried away by Florence Pugh’s beauty and acting skills. The colourful dresses, the luxurious, yet easy going lifestyle, and their seemingly perfect day-to-day routine, immediately caught my attention. “What could go wrong?” I thought to myself. As a media student, I have started to analyse films more while watching them. I was fascinated by the close-up shots, repeated elements and parallelism scenes. So, I think Wilde did a good job with them!

However, without spoiling it too much, the movie left me with mixed emotions. I got to laugh and I got to cringe. But I didn’t cry, which is surprising, because I often cry while watching movies. Yet the biggest emotion I felt was confusion. Half of the time I was questioning myself “What the hell is going on? What is happening? But why?”

Personally, I think the movie was worth the money spent. Although it lasted for two whole hours - which is a very long time for my short attention span - it didn’t feel like it was too long. The story of the film was powerful and left me thinking about it for days - not every movie affects me this way. I even called with a friend afterwards to discuss this messed up storyline and share our emotions. And to quote Harry Styles: “My favourite thing about the movie is that it feels… like a movie.”

So, my overall rating for “Don’t Worry Darling” is 7/10. There are definitely better movies in existence, but I don’t think it deserves the criticism it has received.