 Imagine the life you've always fantasized about, and then imagine discovering something that makes it impossible for you to stay in that life, despite feeling so happy. And it is about her being brave enough. Shia, Shia. I'm so, um, and deep betrayal. I'm not ready to talk about this yet. Then being a perfect combination. I have nothing but respect for Florence's talent. I didn't realize that till right now. Florence, it's a force. I have nothing against her for any reason. You know, I think this might be a bit of a wake-up call from this flow. I'm curious to hear where she's going with this. So we can handle a little Twitter storm. Like, we're all right. Tabloid, gossip, and all the noise out there. Harry did not spit on Chris. You know, my favorite thing about the movie is like, it feels like a movie. It feels like a real, like, you know, go to the film movie. But, you know, you kind of, the reason why you go. Today, we are coming to you from my brand new office. Now, there's still a bit of an echo in here because behind the camera, there is practically nothing. This room is still pretty empty, but this has been long-awaited. I have been filming for my living room couch for literally months. And this office has taken months and it's still far from being done. There's literally boxes and so much shit behind the camera right now. I don't even want to show you. Aside from my picture wall, today's video is going to be a movie review, a movie breakdown, if you will. Today, we're going to be talking about the 2022 psychological thriller starring Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Chris Pine, and Gemma Chan, directed by Olivia Wilde. Today, we're going to be talking about Don't Worry, Darling. Now, if you've been living under a rock, Don't Worry, Darling has been circulating in the news for the past couple months. It was circulating in the news while it was in production, but it has been high on alert in the month of August. Do not, too, being a revolutionary film or being such a good film that people can't stop talking about it. It's been in the news because of drama. Which if you're wondering why a film would be in the news constantly a month prior to release, I think the answer is pretty obvious, but I digress. So for starters, let's talk about the movie just a little bit. Don't Worry, Darling had a budget of $35 million, which is a pretty high budget for a second time director, second time female director, might I correct myself. It's not a huge budget, but it is a higher budget. It was filmed in Palm Springs in October of 2020 and wrapped filming on February 13th, 2021, after delays due to a crew member testing positive for COVID. The movie is set in a 1950s luxury company town and follows a housewife, Alice, whose reality is soon cracked once she realizes the community of people surrounding her aren't at all what they seem to be including the love of her life, Jack. Similar movies include The Step For Wives, Pleasantville, and even the HBO Max Show, which got canceled after one season, made for love. Now let's talk about the drama, but quickly. The movie was originally set to start Shia LaBeouf as Jack and Florence P was Alice, and then after, Shia LaBeouf gets let go or quit. Olivia Wilde quickly replaces Shia LaBeouf with Harry Styles, which is very odd because Harry Styles is not a well-known actor, not really an actor, not even a known actor at all. He's a musician. He had only had a cameo in the movie Dunkirk and the show I Carly in 2012. So his acting reel is super short and it begs the question, why would Olivia Wilde cast him? Very soon after, it is rumored to be that Wilde and Styles are in relation. So that kind of answers the question of why he would get cast as this very, very complex role. Like, this is not just like a love interest. This is a complex psychological thriller like Jake Gyllenhaal ass movie. Like, questions began circulating not only about Harry Styles acting abilities, but also Olivia Wilde directing abilities. While the movie was still in production, rumors started coming out about a so-called drama onset between lead actress Pugh and the film's director, Wilde. The film's claim forms to be annoyed onset due to Styles and Wilde running off to have relations and not taking the film's schedule seriously. This rumor continued to be just that, a rumor until the trailer and poster for Don't Wear Darling was released and everyone took notice of Pugh being the only one not posting the news of her very own movie. Fast forward, Olivia Wilde does a Variety interview and she talks about Shia LaBeouf. Says she didn't like the way he worked, that's why she fired him or let him go or that's why it just didn't work out. I don't really know the quote because I could not find the freaking clip to save my goddamn life because I think Variety edited out the interview. But she talks about it and she's like, yeah, Shia LaBeouf, we let him go. We don't like that energy onset. And then Shia LaBeouf comes out and he's like, no, that's not at all what happened. I'm gonna release the receipts. So he releases receipts of them texting each other. Oh my God, I want you so bad, Shia LaBeouf. Like, I really need you in my movie. And then there's a video of Olivia Wilde being like, Shia, Shia, Shia. I think we could really work this out. I don't want you to leave. I think we should just really work this out. I think if Miss Flow really puts her all into it, we could really make this work. I'm really, I really want you. Shia LaBeouf releases more text messages because why did we ask for his opinion? I don't know. Shia LaBeouf, if you don't know, Shia LaBeouf allegedly, I have to say allegedly or else someone might come for me. He allegedly abused his ex-girlfriend, FK twigs. So why does Olivia Wilde really want him to be in the movie? I don't know, but that's suspicious that all these people really care about Shia LaBeouf in the industry. And then Shia LaBeouf releases more text messages of him and Miss Flow, him and Miss Flow, him and Florence Pugh being like, Florence being like, oh, like I missed you and said. So I don't really know what the conclusion was of that, but Shia LaBeouf is not in the movie, nor should he be in any movies. And then you have all the Venice Film Festival drama, Florence Pugh saying that she's not going to attend because she's too busy filming Dune and then she comes in this big dress and everyone loves her. And everyone is seated in a very odd seating arrangement like divorced parents at a wedding. And then the whole spit gate thing happens where people allege that Terry Stiles spit on Chris Pine. I still believe it happened. It must have. I just want to believe that someone would just outwardly spit on someone in a public event. I just believe that that is the funniest thing in the world. And not only anyone, but like your co-star. That's so funny. And I really want to believe it's true, even though it's proven to be not true. I think it's very funny. First off, this movie is literally my type. There I said it. It looks straight up my alley. I love shit like this. I love psychological thrillers, suspense driven movies. I was so excited when I saw the trailer for it. It had a amazing aesthetic, the 1950s aesthetic built with this eerie almost horror element to it in the background. And then it premiered at Venice Film Festival and the critics were saying it was bad. As soon as the film came out, I came across many TikTok videos saying that it was as bad as the critics were saying, which do I really believe people on TikTok? No. Do I really believe accredited film critics? No. I believe myself and only myself. This movie follows the character Alice and Jack and they are just another perfect couple in their perfect little town in their little cul-de-sac in a company town called The Victory Project. All the husbands work for The Victory Project and all of the wives are housewives. None of them do work. They cook, they clean, and they wait for their husband to come home from work so they can give him a nicely poured drink right as they walk through the door. Don't Worry Darling sets this up to be the All-American dream film. That is the movie that it sets up to be and it looks amazing. I have never been one to really fantasize about a housewife life that has just not been something that I aspired to be, which is fine if you like that. I was absolutely romanticizing it when I saw this movie. But this All-American dream proceeds to be just that, a dream almost too good to be true and Alice starts questioning her life when her friend Margaret begins speaking out about what actually might be going on in this town. A quick backstory on Margaret. Margaret is also a housewife and her husband goes to work, literally the same thing as everyone else, and she had recently lost her son when she went with her son out to the desert which is the Victory Project's main absolute rule that you should never go out into the desert and you should never walk out there. Also, this rule is exclusively for the wife and children. After hearing a lot of the questions that Margaret had been asking, Alice goes out into the desert after she sees supposedly a plane crash. She's on the bus, she gets off the bus, she goes up to the desert, she goes up the mountain and finds a building covered in mirrors. She puts her hands up against the mirror and it is a very... quite a horrific scene. I do remember feeling very eerie when I saw this. It's just a lot of imagery. It's eye imagery. It's bald people. It's 1950s dancers. It's all of the above. And all through this is Frank's voice, the leader of the Victory Project speaking, the message of the Victory Project, have whatever you want, be whatever you want. We have to do this together. And she suddenly wakes up and she's in her house and according to her husband, Jack, she's been there the entire time. The next day, she starts experiencing a lot of strange events. Basically, everything that you see from the trailer that is a crazy out of context shot is just that in the movie. It's pretty much the same out of context spiel. It doesn't really give... the reasoning for why she does all that is so goddamn stupid. She does all this stuff. She gets a phone call from Margaret. Margaret's like, help. You know what's going on. You went out there. You saw what I saw. And then Alice is like, no, I will not help you. Goodbye. And the next thing she knows, she's walking up on Margaret, killing herself, slitting her own throat. And she goes, oh! She does that classic Florence Pugh. And then she gets taken away by these guards as she watches Margaret almost bleed out to death. But I'm skipping forward. They go to a company party. Jack and Alice go to a company party. And we're still getting all these weird shots of Alice and the mirrors and her getting suffocated by the glass window. And we're watching this. They go to the dinner party. And through it, Alice is begging Jack to leave. She literally wants to leave. She's like, please, can we please go? She's about to start crying. Florence Pugh is acting her ass off in this because literally through the entire thing, I was like, she's going through it. We need to help or we need to do something now. We need to do it now. And as she's about to get him to leave, he gets awarded a award for being a senior board member. I don't even fucking know what the award was. It was like a senior board advisory role at the Victory Project. I don't even know what the fuck that means. He gets the award and he says, thank you. And then they're like, Frank, the Victory Project leader is like, give us a dance. And then he dances. Oh, he dances. And I don't know what prompted the movie to do this. I don't know what choice was made to not only do this, but to keep it in for an oddly long amount of time. It was so long and like so unnecessary. I guess it was just to kind of make you be like, this bitch is like fucking crazy. Like he looks insane dancing like that. Like there's no other way to put it other than he looked insane. Maybe that's what they were going for. But I digress. It's just cut between Alice telling her best friend Bunny about what's going on. And she's trying to like tell her like this expose about the Victory Project. And like Bunny is like not getting it and like being like, you're fucking crazy. And it's like cutting in between them saying that and like Harry Styles being like, and everyone is eating it up in the crowd and I don't understand it. I don't understand it at all. Anyways, nothing happens after that. The next day, Alice throws a dinner party for Jack's new promotion. What she doesn't know is that at the promotion dinner, Frank is going to come up to her in the kitchen and confront her and say, I've been waiting for a challenge like you. I've been waiting for someone to challenge me. Yada, yada, yada. I know exactly what you're doing. And she's like, oh my God, he just admitted it to me. And so during the dinner party, she's like, I'm going to confront this mother effer. And so she confronts him. And by confronting him, she turns to her friend. I forget her freaking name, the one with the short hair. And she's like, where are you from? Where'd you guys honeymoon? What's your name? What college did you go to? She's asking all these questions. And then Alice is like, oh my God, you went to these three places. We all went to those three places. There's only three places that anyone has honeymoon here. There's only three places that anyone has grown up from. Why is there only three places? I don't know. And this all seems very eerie. Like, oh my God, like, why would they own, why would they all only be from like one place or like only a few places? And like it is, the explanation is not that fun. And so she starts like confronting Frank and he's like gaslighting her and being like, this is just mass hysteria. You're just going crazy. I don't know what you're talking about. Like this happens, you know, overworked, you're working too hard at the house. It's tough. I know it. Like he's literally just gaslighting her. And then Alice keeps going in on him. And then finally, Gemma Chan, AKA Shirley, goes enough. And I swear to God, I shot out a piece of shit when she did that because it literally made me freeze up so bad. She's like, enough. I swear to God, I got chills. I got chills. She literally just starts saying how she's ungrateful and she's like, you invite us into your home just to berate and to grade my husband. I'm like, oh my God. Literally, Gemma Chan was giving like Asian grandma and it was scaring me. Like it reminded me of my grandma and it was scaring me. It was really scaring me. I know if you're Asian and you saw her do that, it was like it was giving you tingles up your spine because you were like, that is literally my mom or my grandma. Like that's so scary. Everyone ends up leaving and Frank is like, haha, I won, like literally. And then Jack ends up like coming back in and then he's like, why would you do that? He's like, our life, Alice. If you keep on talking like this, you're going to ruin this opportunity for both of us. He starts yelling at her. They start yelling. She ends up begging him to leave with her. And then he, after a while, he like begrudgingly says yes and he's like, okay, okay, I'll do it. And then they get to the car and she's like, oh my God, I packed snacks for us just in case we get hungry in the world. And he's like, yeah. And then he's not driving the car and she's like, what? And then these, the red fricking guards come out. I don't know why all the guards are dressed in red, squid game, squid game moment. They take her away and she's like, what are you doing? She's like, make them stop. Please make them stop. And he's just like bending down his head saying sorry, which I thought he was doing a fine job. I'll get into the acting later, but I think that was his best scene in my opinion. Granted, like doesn't touch Florence at all. You're standing next to Florence Pugh and your best scene is like her bare minimum. But I digress, but I think that's his best scene. And this next scene is the reveal of what's actually going on in the victory project. So Alice is basically getting tortured, she's getting electrocuted and she's starting to get memories of her past life. In her past life, she was a doctor and the breadwinner of the family or the couple, Jack and Alice. Jack did not have a job and Alice told him that she would take care of them and she would pick up extra shifts so they could make ends meet. This was obviously bothering him and she would come home from work and he'd be like, oh, let me touch you. And she's like, I literally want to take a shower. I've literally had my hands in people's bodies today. I would love to take a shower. I would love to because I do have to go back to work in a few hours. And he's like, oh, and his confidence is like taking a shot. Like he like, literally his ego cannot take that. And what I interpret of the film, I've only seen this movie once so sorry if I get some things wrong. Jack had been listening to a podcast about the Victory Project, about a project where you can be whoever you want to be and live any fantasy you want to live. Your perfect world, you can have it. And what the Victory Project is, is a virtual simulation and husbands are the only ones that get to leave the game. Because when they go off to work, they're nine to five, they're actually going out in real life to work their nine to five. Jack made himself a British. That was probably the funniest scene in the movie where it was like candidate 247, Jack, chosen nationality, British. Okay, that was a weird way to explain his accent, but I digress. His American accent was, it was so bad. It was so bad. It was so bad. I don't, he should have just burn British the whole time. There was no need to do a nationality change. Anyways, and that's supposed to be why his accent is slipping in and out because he, I don't even want to talk about that. That's so ridiculous. Jack made himself British, clean cut and the primary breadwinner of the household. And he made sure he was the one to pleasure Alice whenever he wanted while she laid in a sedated state in a grimy apartment bedroom. Jack revealed that when he goes off to work, he actually leaves the simulation to make enough money to have them both stay in the victory project. So the whole story is a matrix retelling. But not only is it a matrix retelling, it's about a man taking the free will of his partner because he was so insecure and had the most fragile ego of all time that he needed to take away her choices in life. Put her in a sedated state and not even tell her what was going on. So he could be the perfect Jack. And a lot of ways I do, I was trying to be like an Olivia Wilde supporter. But in her ways of saying that this movie portrays female pleasure and that the sex scenes were supposed to depict female pleasure and it was not at all about the male gaze. She was a such a backward ass way to talk about the movie because the movie is about him basically putting her in a sedated state and raping her in her mind. Because she did not have the choice to go into the virtual simulation where he sexually stimulates her is absolutely weird. It's so goddamn screwed up. And it's just like, I do believe that the virtual simulation is screwed up, but I also believe that it is just another matrix retelling. This was basically a way to retell the matrix story and just be like, and men are bad. Yeah, men who listen to podcasts are really gross. And then it boils every single odd scene that you see of Alice. She's crushing the empty egg. She's wrapping herself in cellophane. The window is pushing down on her. It's all boiled down to it being her simulation is glitching because she tried to exit the game and she couldn't exit it fully. So her system started glitching. Oh my God. And now I'm being a little bit dramatic. But are you fucking kidding me? I know I'm being dramatic, but are you fucking kidding me? Like that is the movie. That is what you serve to us on a silver platter. It's another one of the movies that's like depicted as like this like or at least not depicted marketed as this feminist survival movie. Or is this empowering movie where she's going to like get out and defeat the system and dismantle the system or something of that sort. That's kind of like the energy you get from it. And then it's like no. She killed Jack in the system so he died in real life and then she ended up getting away and exiting the game. And then Frank's wife kills him and says it's my world now. It could make sense if they fucking explained like one more thing because literally she just went it's my turn now. And like didn't explain what Shirley was doing. Was she taking over the victory project? Was she ending the victory project? What happens to all the other couples? What happens to all the other wives? What happens to Alice's best friend Bunny because Bunny helped Alice run away. It was revealed that Bunny was in there by choice because she lost her children in real life. So she had them in the virtual simulation. The third act seems so rushed because the second was so dragged out. They spent most of their time building suspense and then didn't leave enough time to close up their story because this was meant to be a closed up story. It wasn't supposed to be like yeah here's Alice ten years later but it was to at least explain a little bit more about the victory project because so much of it is us being like what's going on and like why is she suffocating yourself? And then it's kind of all boiled down to it being a glitch because she tried to exit the system and it didn't work. Like with a few rewrites a little bit of cuts throughout the middle of the movie. A lot more explanation on Margaret's character which I heard that through Kiki Lane's Instagram that her and her husband in the movies parts got like half of them got cut out. So that's really annoying because she's a vital role. She's literally the pivotal point, the pivotal starting point of the movie that Alice witnesses and starts her journey on trying to figure out what happens. Like why did they cut her out? Because that's just like that would have been a main point to explain what's going on. I think they just left too many questions unanswered and not in a good way. Not in a oh my god like that really leaves the story up for interpretation. It was more like what the fuck is going on? Like what the actual fuck is going on? Like and don't get me wrong. I mean like I thought it was a fine movie. I thought it was fun. I was entertained. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. But that does not mean that I cannot be entertained for two hours and 30 minutes. And not criticize it. But the directing of this film was amazing. Like I know Olivia wrote it as well. Like the writing I will say was kind of weird and the pacing of the movie is really weird. But like in a director's like role I think she did a good job. Whether or not you want to see that she was actually directing the movie or not because she was too busy running off having sex with Harry smiles. Whether or not you say she was actually the one to direct it or not. I don't really care. I thought the directing was great. I thought it was a very enticing, intriguing, entertaining movie that kept me on the edge of my seat. I was interested to happen with each scene to come. I thought the direction was great. I quite liked it actually. Until we try to remember things that they want us to forget like Margaret. Alice. No. The acting. It's no surprise that Florence Pugh carried. We were expecting that when we watched the movie. Like after seeing her hold such strong performances. My stomach was literally turning watching the things happen to her. I was in awe trying to keep up with her basically. Like I was trying to keep up with her throughout the movie. Supporting characters like Chris Gemma, Nick, Olivia and every other cast member did amazing as well. I think we would have seen a way bigger standout performance from Kiki Lane if they let her. If they let her. If they let her. We would have seen a really good standout supporting role performance from Kiki Lane. I think her parts were still great. I just think they could have made her stand out a lot more if they actually like put her scenes in the movie. Harry Styles. Harry Styles. Harry Styles I want to talk to you. Because you weren't as bad as I thought you were going to be. You weren't as bad as I thought you were going to be. With everyone talking about it I really thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be hard and squat and after. I thought that was what I was tuning into and I got such far from that. Was it the most amazing Oscar worthy performance I've ever seen? No. But was I expecting that? No. I think his worst parts were his screaming lines where he was in a fight or an argument with Alice. It seemed like he was holding back. So instead of being intimidating it seemed like a performance which you could say was intentional because his character is putting on a performance to try to convey to Alice that this is all real. Whatever. Whatever. Anyone saying that he completely ruins the movie's line because he just simply doesn't. He doesn't have enough screen time or lines to ruin the entire movie. That ain't fine. It wasn't too distracting. Could it have been better? Would I have replaced him in a heartbeat? Yes. Am I going to talk about his bad acting for years to come? No. I don't care about it that much. I think this movie has a great concept to its core. Movie structure wise I think it could have been fixed majorly by a few rewrites to the third act. I think that dragging out that second act and trying to build suspense did not really work as well as they thought it would be. I think they rushed her escape. They rushed the reveal of her memories. I think it was just a bit too rushed for my taste. It's a fascinating story to tell but I think it was marketed incorrectly. I think it seemed like Olivia was trying to portray this as sort of like this feminist empowering story. I'm not going to put words in her mouth because I don't think she said that. But it just seemed like kind of the energy that I was getting at this was like this is about female pleasure. This is about like the woman's story like kind of like this 1950s patriarchy type society like trying to escape it. When really it was just an awful horror story of male dominance and control which I've been seeing. This is not an original thought. I've been seeing a lot of people on Twitter say this is just that this archetype of film coming out where it is like we are women and we are strong and really at the end of the day it's a woman suffering for two hours and nothing really happens at the end. In conclusion, I liked the movie. I gave it a three and a half. I think I might bump it down to a three on Letterbox. Do I think I'm going to be raving about this movie in five years to come? No. I don't think I'm going to remember it. Yeah. Did I miss a bunch of foreshadowing? Probably. Should I watch an ending explained? Probably. Will I? No. This is the ending explained. I'm not watching ending explains anymore. I'm making them. I will explain it to you and it's going to be wrong. You know my favorite thing about the movie is like it feels like a like a movie. It feels like a real like you know go to the film movie.