Don't Worry Darling (2022) * 1/2

Directed by:  Olivia Wilde

Starring:  Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Nick Kroll, Chris Pine, Olivia Wilde, Gemma Chan

I am not revealing a spoiler by suggesting that Don't Worry Darling is all spoiler.   It is so blatantly obvious from the first frame that Something Is Wrong that the movie is just a slog of a waiting game until the Big Reveal is inexorably revealed.   And when it's revealed, it isn't anything special.   I was able to ascertain the twist because I've seen The Truman Show and The Village. 

I won't be a churl and uncover anything further.   Don't Worry Darling seemingly takes place in the 1950's in a sun-drenched suburban paradise where the men drive off to work every day and the women perform their daily tasks and find ways to kill time until their husbands arrive home and service them on the dinner table.  That is at least the case with Jack (Styles) and Alice (Pugh), who appear to be the perfect couple in this Shangri-La in the middle of the American desert.   The streets and homes look like leftover sets from The Truman Show, but hey you can't have everything.   With that being said, Don't Worry Darling looks gorgeous.   Its production values and performances far exceed the material they are saddled with.

All is not right in this utopia run by Frank (Pine), who is Jack's boss and the leader of The Victory Project, the shadowy company in the middle of the desert where the men work and are forbidden to discuss with their spouses.   While Alice tends to the household chores, Frank's voice penetrates the soundtrack sounding like someone reading from a self-help guide to living up to your potential.   Nameless men dressed in all red lurk in the vicinity as security guards.   A distressed neighbor slits her own throat while standing on her roof.  Yep, nothing suspicious to see here.   Frank may as well be wearing a t-shirt signaling his villainy or perhaps his cult leadership.   The mysterious goings-on which cause Alice to question her reality are as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face. 

No one believes Alice, naturally, crediting her suspicions to anxiety or exhaustion.   Frank, however, seems to relish the challenge Alice provides him.   When she accuses Frank of being an evil manipulator who is controlling lives in front of all their friends at a dinner party, Frank can hardly contain his self-satisfied smirk.   Pugh gives us as sympathetic a protagonist as one could expect.   Harry Styles has been criticized for not being up to Pugh's skill level, but if you think about the nature of their relationship, it makes sense for Styles to take a back seat, even in the town of Victory. 

Don't Worry Darling is Olivia Wilde's second feature, after the overrated Booksmart (2019).  Wilde exhibits the appropriate technical skills to be a big-time director, but even she needs better material to work from.  Don't Worry Darling is so excited to show us its secrets that it never builds suspense by attempting to hide them.