{"id":499,"date":"2022-09-24T15:19:53","date_gmt":"2022-09-24T15:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/?p=499"},"modified":"2024-01-04T14:28:48","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T14:28:48","slug":"review-dont-worry-darling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/?p=499","title":{"rendered":"Review: Don’t Worry Darling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After watching Booksmart<\/em>, Olivia Wilde\u2019s sophomore effort probably comes as a bit of a surprise. Instead of studious teens and wild parties, we\u2019re thrown straight into the world of Victory, a utopian paradise where new citizens Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack Chambers (Harry Styles) are enjoying the decadence of suburban life thanks to the environment\u2019s cult-like creator \u2013 (Chris Pine). All of this oasis is provided without pay, provided that the wives stick to the golden rule of never asking about their husband\u2019s work. No exposition is provided as to how the couple and its other residents got there, but with the help of some jaunty editing and flashing imagery, Alice soon realises that there\u2019s trouble in paradise after witnessing the apparent suicide of her friend Margaret (KiKi Layne).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The environment is quickly established through stylish 50s and 60s domestic home spaces and unsettling colour palettes as cars leave their driveways in tandem. Houses are neatly aligned and designed in Edward Scissorhands<\/em>-style symmetry, characterising the dystopian order lying behind Victory\u2019s apparent promise of freedom. Florence Pugh is far and away Don\u2019t Worry Darling<\/em>\u2019s greatest asset, and she\u2019s certainly had a lot of practice in playing trauma after her standout performance in Midsommar<\/em>; her still expressions of terror frequently convey meaning without saying a word. Styles, however, is wooden at best, and Pine is merely adequate as the messianic figure pulling the strings. Since Pugh, Styles and Pine comprise the film\u2019s central leads, the rest of the narrative is left to the visuals themselves, which while impressive, don\u2019t do enough to substitute for story. Side-characters like Pine\u2019s wife Shelley (Gemma Chan) and local resident Bunny (played by Wilde herself) make little to no impression, and John Piles\u2019 tense strings don\u2019t exactly bring any fresh ideas to the standard horror soundtrack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time we reach the big twist and learn what the men are really up to, it\u2019s little more than a deflating revelation. Don\u2019t Worry Darling<\/em> riffs on films like The Truman Show<\/em>, Pleasantville<\/em>, and Stranger Than Fiction<\/em>, but fails to retain the spark or smarts of any. Less Booksmart, more Bookdumb. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And with that killer ending line, I\u2019ll get my coat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After watching Booksmart, Olivia Wilde\u2019s sophomore effort probably comes as a bit of a surprise. Instead of studious teens and wild parties, we\u2019re thrown straight into the world of Victory, a utopian paradise where new citizens Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack Chambers (Harry Styles) are enjoying the decadence of suburban life thanks to the environment\u2019s cult-like … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Review: Don’t Worry Darling”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1354,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions\/1354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}