BEFORE: Yep, here's another one - I worked at a screening of this film, back when it was first released, which would have been sometime last September, just about a year ago. Or maybe it was a guild screening, which would have been closer to the end of the year, around award qualification time. Who remembers? Well, let's check the calendar - it was a screening for the Visual Effects Society on September 30, 2022 - so it took me just about a year to get around to watching this. Sounds about right.
But then, where does this belong? I took pains to not WATCH the film, or read too much about it, and it all seemed very enigmatic - and then after those guild screenings, I never heard anything else about the film after that. No Oscar nominations, no Golden Globes, that's not a good sign. Worse, nobody was even talking about what a great movie it was, so umm, maybe it's not great? I don't know, I have to watch it. IMDB lists it as a "drama / mystery / thriller", OK so there's that, an indication that it maybe doesn't belong in a February chain. Is it some kind of pseudo-horror film? If so, then maybe this is the best place for it, in the run-up week to the real horror chain. Damned if I know, I haven't watched it yet. So let's clear it off the DVR and hope for the best....
Ari'el Stachel carries over from "Zola".
THE PLOT: While her husband leaves home every day to work in a top secret facility, a young 1950's housewife begins to question her life when she notices strange behavior from the other wives in the neighborhood.
AFTER: Yeah, this is a real head-scratcher of a movie, it's enigmatic to the point of being really annoying about it. Oh, wait, SPOILER ALERT before I go any further, because I don't want to give it away, but at the same time, I've been putting off learning this film's secret for a whole year and I'll probably be buzzing about it, and eager to talk about it with somebody, ANYBODY. Like I was with "Empire of Light", but the only problem there was, I'm apparently the only person who took the time to watch that movie. I'm surrounded by filmmakers and theater workers, but nobody else in my orbit has seen this film. Has anybody in either circle seen "Don't Worry Darling"? It feels a lot like "Sorry to Bother You", which was another annoying enigmatic film with a big twist to it, and then when you learn the twist, you might toggle between, "Wait, what? THAT'S the twist?" and then you look for somebody to discuss it with, only nobody else gives a shit. Then six months later it feels like everybody else has forgotten that movie even exists, because they either saw it and forgot about it, or they didn't see it and also forgot about it.
So, screw it, even if nobody else is still talking about this movie, I'M TALKING ABOUT THIS MOVIE because I waited a whole year to do that. The first hour puts forward the interaction of couples in this idyllic 1950's community, where the men go to work on some secret project, and the women stay home, clean the house, cook dinner for their husbands to enjoy after work, and listen to radio broadcasts with positive messages from the founder of their town, which is called "Victory". Now with a name like that, the men could be working on some government project, or nuclear power, or who knows, maybe the whole community is some giant cult in the middle of the desert and the men are in their lodge wearing red robes and sacrificing chickens to Ba'al or something. There are so many directions this thing could go, and the movie defiantly refuses to pick one, at least for the first 90 minutes.
Alice notices some things that don't add up, however, like how the women can go shopping and buy whatever clothes they want on the company account, and never pay for them. And her husband refuses to tell her anything about where he goes during the day and what gets done there. One day while on the trolley that takes the women from their homes to the store she sees a plane crash in the desert, only the trolley driver doesn't see it, or pretends to not see it, but she gets off the trolley and decides to check this out, only this takes her near headquarters, which is the one place the women aren't allowed to go. What could possibly go wrong, though?
The other wives in the community seem very complacent about their lives and their situations, except for one who claims to have bad dreams, and Alice sees her being disciplined at one point, and later she swears she sees this woman cut her own throat and jump off of a building. Later Alice is told that woman is fine, not dead, but just in the hospital being treated, and she should think nothing of it. OK, fine, but again, WTF?
But the most disturbing thing to modern viewers, or at least it should be the most disturbing thing, is that the men work and the women cook and clean and the gender roles are very clearly defined, so there are no women in the workplace and no stay-at-home dads, and sure, this was all very normal for the 1950's, but through a modern lens, this seems kind of nightmarish, no? That American society had no trouble telling men that it was OK to work and succeed and make money, only women, we hope you enjoy cooking and cleaning, because that's all you're entitled to do! And the scariest thing might be that everybody back then was OK with this?
But then Alice starts having disturbing dreams. She feels like the walls are closing in (literally, although probably this was just a metaphor for the way she was feeling. Or was it?). She passed out after visiting headquarters, then woke up back at home, with no explanation for how she got there. Oh, well, it probably doesn't matter. But then who are these dancing women in her dreams, and why is she now the only woman in town who's not content to just toe the party line, cook and clean every day and go shopping and drink cocktails by the pool, because surely there must be more to life than all that, right? RIGHT?
Then there are daily loud noises and earthquake-like rumblings, and if that's somehow connected to the work the men are doing, well, they're not supposed to talk about it, so there's no point in asking about it, right? But again, you get the feeling that this is all building up to something, but WHAT? Then the reveal comes, and once that happens, well, there's no going back, really, both Alice and the audience have to deal with the new reality once the cat's out of the bag. Again I'm reminded of films like "Sorry to Bother You" and "The Menu" when you just feel deep down that something weird's going to happen, then you're kind of relieved when it does, just so you can say, "Yep, THERE it is."
But really, come on, it's THAT? I feel like I had the rug pulled out from under me, to a certain degree. Certainly it felt like the screenwriters were setting us up for something different, like maybe the Manhattan Project or a cult or a "Stepford Wives"-type situation, but no, it's not any of those things. But so many unanswered questions, like what was that loud noise and the earthquake-like rumble? Now it seems like the screenwriters either forgot where they were originally headed, or they changed their minds halfway through, because the clues would never lead you to this illogical conclusion, and I don't like being tricked.
And the film made $87 million, so somebody besides me saw it, only why is nobody still buzzing about it, is it because they don't understand it? Well, if so, that's kind of what the film deserves for being so enigmatic for so long, the reveal is almost like an afterthought when it comes. Plus it could never possibly live up to the first hour of set-up that tried to signal us all that something was coming, only we didn't expect THAT. Maybe other movie fans also don't like being tricked, or that feeling of the rug being pulled out from under them?
I just remember there was so much backstage drama about this film, with director Olivia Wilde leaving her husband, Jason Sudeikis, at some point so she could date Harry Styles, whom was cast in her film to replace Shia LaBeouf, who couldn't seem to work with anybody else and was very publicly fired. Then there were reports of Olivia Wilde fighting with the lead actress, Florence Pugh, over the direction of the film and I think Pugh almost got fired too. Who knows? I wasn't there, I'm just repeating what I read about. Then during the festival premiere in Venice, there was footage of one actor accidentally spitting on another one, and there was so much debate over this it was worse than the arguments about whether that infamous dress was white and gold or blue and black. Who cares? Sometimes spit accidentally comes out of one person's mouth and lands in another person's mouth, get over it. Even if it happened, why make a thing out of it, haven't you all got anything better to do?
All that manufactured drama, and everyone was talking about the magic loogie and nobody was talking about what happened in the film. Really, they still aren't, so what does THAT tell you?
Also starring Florence Pugh (last heard in "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish"), Harry Styles (last seen in "Eternals"), Chris Pine (last seen in "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves"), Olivia Wilde (last heard in "DC League of Super-Pets"), KiKi Layne (last seen in "The Old Guard"), Gemma Chan (last heard in "Raya and the Last Dragon"), Nick Kroll (last heard in "The Bob's Burgers Movie"), Sydney Chandler, Kate Berlant (last seen in "After Class"), Asif Ali (last seen in "Dean"), Douglas Smith (last seen in "Miss Sloane"), Timothy Simons (last seen in "Yes, God, Yes"), Steve Berg (last seen in "Tag"), Daisy Sudeikis, Dita Von Teese, Marcello Reyes, Daniel Nishio, Venice Wong.
RATING: 4 out of 10 mystery men in red jumpsuits
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