First Take: Don’t Worry Darling - Hollywood should’ve been worried.

SYNOPSIS: A 1950s housewife living with her husband in a utopian experimental community begins to worry that his glamorous company could be hiding disturbing secrets.

So let’s talk about Warner Bros. Studios for a moment. They’re having some serious trouble, so they can legitimately only afford to put two films out for the rest of the year - next month’s Black Adam, and this, the latest directorial effort from Olivia Wilde which has been plagued with controversy both on and off the screen. From an actual review standpoint, this film is a mess. But the events of this film’s production (and the whole Shia LaBeouf saga) only make it feel worse.

Wilde feels like she is a little bit out of her depth as a director here, as this is her first major studio movie since helming Booksmart in 2019- it is an absolute car crash in terms of the direction. At 2 hours 3 minutes the pacing is all over the shop, making Katie Silberman’s script (heavily rewritten from a spec script by Carey and Shane Van Dyke) drag on - and this is before the final act of the film completely ruins the whole thing and takes some genuinely unnecessary 15-rated scenes and puts a way darker light on them. Matthew Libatique’s camerawork is awesome though, as is anything he works on, and John Powell’s score is unique to say the least.

But the only true redeeming feature of this film is Florence Pugh, who in typical fashion, delivers an incredible performance even with the alleged tension she had on set with Wilde (who also has a supporting role). Filling out the cast is Gemma Chan, Chris Pine, Nick Kroll and Kiki Layne, who are all pretty decent as you’d expect. But as for a certain Mr. Styles, well… he just isn’t lead actor material *yet*. As much as he has potential, a few years working on the indie circuit - like Robert Pattinson did before landing the Batman gig - will do him the world of good.

THE VERDICT

I’m not angry. I’m just very disappointed. Don’t Worry Darling had so much potential, but the combination of a poor director, a poor script, and a cast that simply didn’t get along well ruined any hope of getting higher than this rating. Playing the iconic N64 Goldeneye game just hours before this review was a way better experience than this movie.

RATING: 2/5