Don't Worry Darling

The first thing I noticed about Victory wasn't the mid-century modern architecture or the suspiciously perfect martinis—it was the sound of crisp bacon sizzling. It’s a sensory assault of "ideal" 1950s Americana so thick you can almost smell the hairspray through the screen. I watched this film while wearing a pair of incredibly itchy wool socks that I’d forgotten to take off after a hike, and honestly, that prickly, slightly suffocating discomfort felt like the perfect companion to the glossy paranoia Olivia Wilde builds in the first hour of Don't Worry Darling.

For a few months in 2022, you couldn't breathe without hearing about this movie, but rarely for the reasons the filmmakers intended. It became the ultimate "main character" of Film Twitter, a vortex of "spit-gate" rumors, behind-the-scenes feuds, and the kind of tabloid frenzy we usually associate with the Golden Age of Hollywood, not the era of TikTok. But once you peel back the layers of gossip, what’s left is a fascinating, if somewhat lopsided, entry into the contemporary sci-fi canon.

The Pugh Powerhouse and the Victory Vibe

At the center of this sun-drenched nightmare is Alice, played by Florence Pugh. If there is one thing I will shout from the rooftops, it’s that Florence Pugh could find the emotional core of a microwave instruction manual. She is the film’s gravity. While the world around her is curated to look like a Slim Aarons photograph brought to life by cinematographer Matthew Libatique (Black Swan, A Star Is Born), Pugh brings a sweaty, breathless desperation that keeps the stakes feeling real.

Opposite her is Harry Styles as Jack. Let’s be real: Styles has the screen presence of a very expensive, very handsome lamp for most of the first act, though he finds his footing once the domestic bliss starts to curdle. Then there’s Chris Pine as Frank, the leader of the Victory Project. Pine is doing a terrifyingly calm riff on a self-help guru mixed with a cult leader, allegedly inspired by Jordan Peterson. His verbal sparring matches with Pugh are the film’s high-water marks; they feel like a chess match where the loser gets erased from existence.

High-Concept Hopes and Stepford Shadows

As science fiction, Don't Worry Darling sits in that uncomfortable "near-future" space that contemporary cinema loves to haunt. It’s a "what if?" that feels uncomfortably tethered to our current conversations about trad-wife aesthetics and the dark corners of the manosphere. The world-building is meticulously handled by Wilde and screenwriter Katie Silberman, who previously teamed up for the excellent Booksmart.

The rules of Victory are simple: the men go to work on "the development of progressive materials," the women stay home to polish silver and take ballet classes, and no one asks questions. It’s The Stepford Wives meets The Matrix, but filtered through a 2020s lens of digital radicalization. When the cracks appear—a plane crash no one else sees, a neighbor (KiKi Layne) having a breakdown, a house that literally feels like it’s shrinking—the film excels at building a claustrophobic dread.

The trouble is that the "Big Reveal" (which I won’t spoil) is one of those narrative choices that feels both inevitable and slightly undercooked. It’s a classic sci-fi trope that contemporary audiences might find a bit "been there, done that," especially after the high-bar world-building of things like Severance or Black Mirror. However, seeing it executed with this much visual panache makes it worth the ride.

The Chaos That Created a Cult

It’s impossible to talk about this film without acknowledging its status as a modern-day cult curiosity. The production was a lightning rod for drama: the mid-shoot departure of Shia LaBeouf (Transformers), the "Miss Flo" video leaked to the press, and the supposed rift between Wilde and Pugh. During the Venice Film Festival premiere, the internet spent forty-eight hours analyzing whether Harry Styles spit on Chris Pine (he didn't, but the fact that we cared says a lot about our current monoculture).

But that’s the thing about "Contemporary Cult" films—they are often defined more by the experience of their release than the content of their frames. Fans have obsessively cataloged the different versions of the script (the original 2019 "Black List" version by the Van Dyke brothers was reportedly much darker) and the intricate costume design by Arianne Phillips (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood).

There’s a specific joy in revisiting a film that was "hated" into existence. Turns out, it's not a disaster. It's a stylish, well-acted thriller that maybe bites off more thematic cake than it can chew, but at least the cake is delicious. Wilde has a fantastic eye for composition, and even if the ending feels like it’s missing a final twenty minutes of explanation, the journey through the desert in a vintage Cadillac is a blast.

Don't Worry Darling is a gorgeous piece of speculative fiction that suffers slightly from its own ambition. It wants to be a profound statement on the modern gender war, but it’s most successful when it’s just being a paranoid thriller. Florence Pugh elevates the material at every turn, making the Victory Project feel like a place worth escaping. It’s a film that captures the anxiety of our current moment—where "perfection" is often just a very well-maintained digital filter.