‘Don’t Worry Darling’ Review: Florence Pugh and Harry Styles Get Weird

In case you have been nervous, Do not Fear Darling is a superbly serviceable slice of big-screen weirdness. The slick psychological drama, now on DVD and Blu-ray and streaming on HBO Max, is a shiny, stylishly surreal thriller with one thing to say, that includes Harry Kinds, an infinite array of attractive fashions and Florence Pugh in wonderful type. What extra would you like?

Having premiered in September amid infinite weird experiences from the set and movie festivals, Do not Fear Darling is offered to lease and purchase on-line now. It is also out on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in time for Christmas presents for Harry Kinds followers. 

Pugh stars as a glamorous Nineteen Fifties housewife dwelling a picture-perfect suburban life. She even has a trophy husband, performed by pop star Kinds in a wardrobe of impeccable fits and enviable midcentury shirts. However not one of the gossiping wives know the place their husbands go every day of their shiny Cadillacs, and Pugh begins to marvel what’s actually driving the sun-dappled desert city’s easily sinister chief, performed by Chris Pine. Nobody else appears nervous about it, darling, however there’s positively one thing bizarre occurring on this retro utopia.

Director Olivia Wilde slowly cranks up the unsettling points of this odd idyll, tormenting Pugh’s more and more unsettled housewife with teasing visions and mounting paranoia. Wilde additionally performs one of many different wives, perpetually armed with a cocktail and sharply penciled side-eye. There is a trace of The Stepford Wives about them, and you will in all probability additionally end up considering of any variety of midcentury melodramas and home chillers that stab on the suburban fantasy, from Rosemary’s Child to Blue Velvet to Get Out.  

So yeah, clearly you already know there is a twist coming. I can not get by means of a brief TV episode of Black Mirror or Devs or Tales From the Loop with out impatiently wishing somebody would simply inform me the twist so I can go do one thing extra fascinating. It is an actual feat to spin a yarn that retains the viewer engrossed for a complete film. Do not Fear Darling largely pulls it off: As John Powell’s unnerving rating meshes with traditional Nineteen Fifties pop cuts soundtracking the deliciously fashionable oddness, I discovered myself half-hoping for no clarification in any respect. There’s solely a restricted alternative of endings for these sort of tales and an over-literal answer not often lives as much as the vibe.

Because the movie premiered at movie festivals in current weeks, the weird happenings on display screen have been matched by extraordinary occasions among the many movie’s director and stars. It is not price rehashing the drama, but it surely’s grimly ironic that the off-screen drama has boosted a movie which may simply have sunk with out hint. Do not Fear Darling is a medium-sized film, and an unique story — the type of factor you do not see a lot in theaters any extra. Even with big stars aboard, Do not Fear Darling may simply have been a type of streaming flicks everybody talks about for 2 years and will get excited in regards to the trailer after which sooner or later you marvel, hey, no matter occurred to that film, and understand it got here out on Netflix Prime Video Hulu Plus three months in the past.

However do not relish the messy gossip an excessive amount of. The frenzied media circus threatens to overshadow the inventive advantage of a movie directed by a lady, to an extent that is barely conceivable for male filmmakers. Nonetheless, even when you have not been following the spit and spats, it is merely unattainable to enter Do not Fear Darling with no preconceived notions. You are not meant to. Kinds is the most well liked pop star on the planet, Pugh the most well liked film star. The scorching pairing of personas is the entire level.

No less than it must be. Pugh proves her expertise with an nearly informal effortlessness, embodying a theater-filling anguish whereas leaving a lingering impression she nonetheless has extra left within the tank. Pugh delivers a commanding, usually mesmeric efficiency that anchors the movie at even its weakest moments.

And Harry Kinds can be there.

If we’re being charitable, that is a type of blessed events when a performer’s limitations kinda swimsuit the character. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who cannot persuade anybody he is a human particular person however is ideal as an inarticulate barbarian or stiffened robotic. In Do not Fear Darling, Kinds’ pomaded husband is a fantasy determine, so it is OK that he struggles to inject any emotion into his strains. He is much less a performer and extra of a prop — one other piece of the shiny furnishings filling the set, like a classy rug or lamp: stunning, clean and perpetually fading into the background.

Sooner or later throughout the movie, I considered Matt Smith’s flip in Final Evening in Soho. Like Do not Fear Darling, Final Evening in Soho is an ambiguously fantastical drama a few girl trapped by in a whirlwind of retro glamor and male violence. Smith performed the silver-tongued, exactly tailor-made seducer, embodying a seething mixture of sexuality, freedom, jealousy and menace. Right here, Chris Pine provides all these issues, as a result of Fashion certain would not.

Giving Kinds the good thing about the doubt, casting such a magnetic onstage performer and gloriously playful wearer of garments subverts the retro manliness of Pine, of Jon Hamm in Mad Males, of Sean Connery’s James Bond (glimpsed on a poster within the movie). One scene, which performs to Kinds’ performative strengths because it places him squarely within the highlight, provides a whiff of critique for the best way he is made to caper earlier than us. Which is simply one of many many concepts sloshing round Do not Fear Darling like ice cubes spilling from a cocktail glass.

These concepts might not be significantly delicate or unique, however not less than there’s one thing occurring beneath the sharkskin fits and pinup attire. Whether or not the movie is sensible of those themes is one other query, however the entire thing seems to be rooted in seethingly well timed anger.

So the music, the garments and not less than one of many stars are price your time. Whereas it’s miles from the sum of its elements, Do not Fear Darling is a superbly entertaining B-movie.