Olivia Wilde To Write & Direct Don't Worry Darling

[samsnee]

Read the plot on Wikipedia. Definitely sounds they overdo it on the metaphors. Less subtext and just plain text.

 

[Kane52630]

I'll write my review later but here's a sneak peak:

 

[Lily Adler]

I'll write my review later but here's a sneak peak:

Will this movie along with the BTS drama ruin Olivia Wilde's directorial career?

 

[Kane52630]

Probably? Probably not? I'm a big fan of Olivia Wilde but her directing record is a 0-2 for me.

 

[Ninjablade]

Man, the more I think about this movie, the more annoyed I get. On a technical level there's so much I really liked and want to praise, but it's all so wasted on this horrible script. Having read the original spec, it's equally as bad, which blows me away.

There's so much you could've done with this premise, and they botched it so hard. Just in my head, I've been able to workshop so much more interesting ways to go about what they wanted to do.

 

[Kane52630]

KiKi Layne Says 'Don't Worry Darling' Scenes Got Cut: '#GotMyCheck' - Variety

 

[Closerframe]

It’s amazing that something can be so visually appealing but so bad at the same time. The first half is watchable, but it quickly dissolves into nonsensical fumbling with its horrible twist that makes you question how exactly this is suppose to have a feminist message behind it.

 

[Kane52630]

You know what movie this reminded me of? Steven Knight's Serenity

 

[Deck Rickard]

I haven’t seen that movie because someone spoiled the twist for me and it was so stupid I couldn’t bring myself to watch it.

 

[Ninjablade]

This movie is certainly equally as stupid.

 

[samsnee]

Man, the more I think about this movie, the more annoyed I get. On a technical level there's so much I really liked and want to praise, but it's all so wasted on this horrible script. Having read the original spec, it's equally as bad, which blows me away.

There's so much you could've done with this premise, and they botched it so hard. Just in my head, I've been able to workshop so much more interesting ways to go about what they wanted to do.

Now I want to hear your ideas

 

[Ninjablade]

Now I want to hear your ideas

Spoiler

A lot of them revolve around cutting the whole virtual reality shtik because it's really stupid in it's usage here, but if I was forced to use it, I would've fundamentally changed its usage.

I would've had everyone being completely aware of what was going on, not just the men and Olivia Wilde's character. Chris Pine would've been this therapist that uses this virtual world to help guide people through whatever their respective issues are. For Wilde, it's dealing with the loss of her children. For another couple, it might be a husband's re-acclimation post-military service, etc. For Pugh and Styles it would be relationship counseling. So, on the whole, the VR world would be representative of the false realities that people make in the mind in response to trauma.

Pugh and Styles would be in a much more overtly abusive relationship, and are attempting to use the VR to amend issues by living in what would be a "perfect world". Pugh's hallucinations would be physical manifestations of her anxieties within her relationship that she feels not knowing what Styles does during the day while he goes off and works in the real world to keep up with the costs of the VR. Essentially the conflict would come down to the struggles of escaping an abusive relationship, and breaking from the false reality that Styles' character has forced Pugh into.

 

[TheVileOne]

Will this movie along with the BTS drama ruin Olivia Wilde's directorial career?

No it won't because it's actually doing well.

 

[TheVileOne]

KiKi Layne Says 'Don't Worry Darling' Scenes Got Cut: '#GotMyCheck' - Variety

While I didn't really like the movie, she's a supporting character and the movie isn't about her. The movie is centered around Florence Pugh's character. Also it's not like all her scenes were cut. She's still a character in the movie and part of an important subplot.

 

[Kane52630]

Yeah but there's some obvious scenes from a lot of the supporting cast they cut in this movie which is nuts because the movie is already too long.

 

[Closerframe]

Spoiler

A lot of them revolve around cutting the whole virtual reality shtik because it's really stupid in it's usage here, but if I was forced to use it, I would've fundamentally changed its usage.

I would've had everyone being completely aware of what was going on, not just the men and Olivia Wilde's character. Chris Pine would've been this therapist that uses this virtual world to help guide people through whatever their respective issues are. For Wilde, it's dealing with the loss of her children. For another couple, it might be a husband's reclamation post-military service, etc. For Pugh and Styles it would be relationship counseling. So, on the whole, the VR world would be representative of the false realities that people are made in the mind in response to trauma.

Pugh and Styles would be in a much more overtly abusive relationship, and are attempting to use the VR to amend issues by living in what would be a "perfect world". Pugh's hallucinations would be physical manifestations of her anxieties within her relationship that she feels not knowing what Styles does during the day while he goes off and works in the real world to keep up with the costs of the VR. Essentially the conflict would come down to the struggles of escaping an abusive relationship, and breaking from the false reality that Styles' character has forced Pugh into.

This sounds 10x better than what we got.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

This is now on HBO Max.

 

[Prison Mike]

This was a pretty bad movie. That being said, Miss Flo was great and I don’t think Styles was that bad either.

 

[antsman41]

Fell asleep twice... the middle repeated too much.

Solid visuals and sets, Pugh Pugh ruled - but the overall product was trash.

 

[kguillou]

Just caught this on HBO max and...I dont know what to make of this. I didnt hate it at all, I liked a lot of the technical aspects, the mood, the score but...this story amounted to a whole bunch of nothing, didnt it? Like what was the point of this? Wilde ruined her career for this movie?

 

[Deck Rickard]

Yeah, this movie is basically like if you put

Spoiler

Get Out, The Stepford Wives and The Village in a blender, but came up with something not even close to being as good as Get Out (but it might be marginally better than the other two). It looks really good and Pugh and Pine deliver great performances. The movie itself is just mediocre and very, very predictable. It’s amusing to see how Wilde thinks it’s much smarter than it actually is; she uses extreme closeups in the flashbacks early on to attempt to hide the fact that the scenes occur in the present day and not in the 1950s but you can still tell if you look closely. As for the Jordan Petersen/incel stuff, the movie doesn’t do a terrible job of showing how a man with a fragile ego could be susceptible to that (and Wilde does a good job of making Harry Styles look like a total deadbeat loser lol) but I think you needed more there. I get that they were trying to save the “twist” for the end but ultimately then you just had about 90 minutes of Florence noticing things and getting reprogrammed and it gets really repetitive. And then the movie just ends, conveniently introducing a Matrix-style element of characters dying in real life if they die in the Victory Project (which never comes close to being explained or making sense), so that Harry can’t put her back into the system. But since there’s no one to free her from her restraints, I guess Florence wakes up chained to a bed and presumably can’t get free so she either dies that way or eventually some incels come and put her back in the system? Or maybe not since Gemma Chan took over? But it seems like maybe she’s a true believer in the project and just wanted to usurp Pine? Eh. Why am I wasting my time pondering any of this?

 

[Da-Scribe]

Wasn’t terrible to me. Really enjoyed the direction and acting. Plot was pretty predictable though and I didn’t really love the ending.

I almost feel like it would’ve been more interesting for the twist to hit in like the first act with the remainder of the film serving as a sorta cat and mouse thing. Eh, oh well.

 

[Prison Mike]

Yeah, this movie is basically like if you put

Spoiler

Get Out, The Stepford Wives and The Village in a blender, but came up with something not even close to being as good as Get Out (but it might be marginally better than the other two). It looks really good and Pugh and Pine deliver great performances. The movie itself is just mediocre and very, very predictable. It’s amusing to see how Wilde thinks it’s much smarter than it actually is; she uses extreme closeups in the flashbacks early on to attempt to hide the fact that the scenes occur in the present day and not in the 1950s but you can still tell if you look closely. As for the Jordan Petersen/incel stuff, the movie doesn’t do a terrible job of showing how a man with a fragile ego could be susceptible to that (and Wilde does a good job of making Harry Styles look like a total deadbeat loser lol) but I think you needed more there. I get that they were trying to save the “twist” for the end but ultimately then you just had about 90 minutes of Florence noticing things and getting reprogrammed and it gets really repetitive. And then the movie just ends, conveniently introducing a Matrix-style element of characters dying in real life if they die in the Victory Project (which never comes close to being explained or making sense), so that Harry can’t put her back into the system. But since there’s no one to free her from her restraints, I guess Florence wakes up chained to a bed and presumably can’t get free so she either dies that way or eventually some incels come and put her back in the system? Or maybe not since Gemma Chan took over? But it seems like maybe she’s a true believer in the project and just wanted to usurp Pine? Eh. Why am I wasting my time pondering any of this?

Spoiler

The ending made me think that Gemma was more of the brains of the operation than Pine? I don’t know, but I did kind of like that Wilde’s character knew about the program all along and wanted to stay in it. That was a second twist to me. But overall the twists couldn’t save this movie.