Movie Review: Don’t Worry Darling | Pittsburgh Magazine

The twisty thriller “Don’t Fear Darling” has, within the months main as much as its launch, change into the topic of limitless trade gossip and web hypothesis. It will possibly’t be decided — regardless of the efforts of a thousand Twitter detectives — if and the way a lot these off-screen components impacted the filmmaking course of; whereas I can’t think about the chaos helped, I received’t speculate.

Regardless of the trigger, “Don’t Fear Darling” is a movie that tries to be refined and nuanced aboard a runaway prepare. Break up-screen flashes, refined cues and character moments are buried beneath the rolling thunder of a wacky, untamed story and everything-but-the-kitchen-sink script. It’s a multitude, and a powerful lead efficiency solely elevates it to the realm of an attention-grabbing mess.

In a simulcast sneak preview Q&A, director Olivia Wilde instructed audiences to “hear carefully and don’t blink.” You’ll have to if you wish to discover something to love.

That lead is from Florence Pugh, who stars as loving housewife Alice. She’s sustaining an impossibly fashionable mid-century trendy residence in a deliberate group whereas her husband (Harry Kinds) putters off to work for a mysterious group referred to as The Victory Venture. Her neighbors are properly stored however remoted of their distant city; obscure references to confidential work are the reason.

Issues get extra cult-y, a distressed neighbor (an underused KiKi Layne) begins hurling accusations, mysterious happenings ensue. Alice begins to suspect there’s one thing sinister behind the all-American gloss. The chief of the corporate and group, a easy remix of Elon Musk named Frank (Chris Pine), appears to orchestrate a systemic gaslighting marketing campaign to throw Alice off the scent — or is she actually unwell?

The revelations can be, so as: underwritten, foolish, vaguely offensive and unsatisfying.

Pugh really is superb, giving some uninspired dialogue and preposterous situations a much-needed boast of credibility; a handful of her co-stars (Layne, Gemma Chan and Nick Kroll all impress) additionally purchase in. Pine, nevertheless, appears to know he’s received a dud on his palms. And Kinds is dramatically, usually hilariously overmatched. When he makes an attempt to go all in on a critical scene, he rages like a cartoon villain, an unintentional “SNL” parody of himself.

Glimpses of the film “Don’t Fear Darling” needed to be are evident right here and there — in Pugh’s efficiency, within the memorable design, in a quietly disturbing building — however these serve solely to focus on all of the methods by which the movie fails. The ultimate joke is that “Don’t Fear Darling” appears completely satisfied of its personal greatness — a would-be emperor blissfully unaware that garments are someplace far, distant.

My Score: 3/10

“Don’t Fear Darling” is now enjoying in theaters.