Don’t Fear Darling Assessment: A Cautionary Story

Warner Bros.

As a part of our protection of the 79th Venice Worldwide Movie Competition, Lex Briscuso opinions Olivia Wilde’s second directorial function, Don’t Fear Darling, starring Florence Pugh and Harry Kinds. Observe together with extra protection in our Venice Movie Competition archives.

Once you think about your good life, you won’t think about one the place every thing seems like a Slim Aarons photograph, however after seeing Olivia Wilde’s second function movie, Don’t Fear Darling, you’ll wish to inhabit simply that sort of stylistic world. Effectively, not less than for the primary twenty minutes of the movie. Wilde’s second directorial try shifts genres from comedy (her first function, Booksmart, was the feminine reply to Superbad) to psychological thriller, and the world she creates is, at its core, removed from the wonder and magic it appears to current to its inhabitants at first look.

Florence Pugh shines in a tour de power main efficiency, giving us one other absorbing flip as a girl who can’t belief these round her, whereas Harry Kinds performs reverse her with a heat magnetism that pulls you all the best way in till you, like Pugh, are caught in a spot you by no means needed to go. Don’t Fear Darling is one hell of an journey, and the implications will each shake you and depart you feeling like, in 2022, the movie’s disturbing plotline isn’t too removed from believable in the true world — which, in a means, makes this film extra of a horror movie than the scariest ghost tales.

Don’t Fear Darling follows the story of a housewife named Alice (Pugh), who’s the right companion to her husband, Jack (Kinds), a profitable engineer who works for the mysterious “Victory Challenge.” Alice cooks, cleans, and loves her husband unconditionally as they get pleasure from their life in an idyllic Palm Springs-style group in a Nineteen Fifties-era desert city. However when a former buddy (KiKi Layne) begins to say that there are extra secrets and techniques being stored from the ladies of the group than they ever thought doable, Alice units out on a harrowing journey to search out out precisely what the boys of the “Victory Challenge” are as much as, regardless of realizing it could shake her to her very foundations.

One of many largest first impressions of this movie is that Wilde’s second function is simply beautiful to have a look at. Matthew Libatique’s cinematography is superb, giving us a really sharp and putting view of the world of Victory and its colourful, stylized design. It superbly reveals off the impeccable manufacturing design (by Katie Byron) and costumes (by Arianne Phillips, who was honored on the Venice Movie Competition for her contributions to the movie) and offers them an enormous platform to shine. Each the manufacturing and costume design are very essential to the world Wilde builds inside Katie Silberman’s script, and it’s clear that was a focus in growing the image. That stated, it wasn’t precisely on level with its Nineteen Fifties-era seems; Some components had been barely off, although it may very well be argued that that was executed deliberately to make the world of the movie really feel only a bit off, which is essential to the story that unfolds all through the runtime. And it does really feel off, a suspicion the viewers shares with Pugh’s Alice from early on.

Opposite to loads of post-press screening speak, I discovered Kinds to be quite participating on display screen. He’s very charming as Pugh’s husband, and their chemistry is deeply palpable from their very first scene collectively. They work nicely as a pair and play off one another properly; Their love — which, because the movie goes on, you discover is the one factor protecting the charade from slipping — feels actual. It’s clear he’s new to the performing sport (having solely beforehand been in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk), however he’s removed from laborious to observe. Weeks in the past, a brief clip of him and Pugh having an argument debuted on-line, and he received completely skewered for his efficiency, however in context, whenever you take a look at his work as a complete, he is filled with grace and even a wholesome dose of nuance on this position.

Plus, the accent is definitely a part of the plot — and it performs into my favourite a part of his flip on this piece, the place we really uncover extra about Jack’s previous. He actually nails this second dimension of his duplicitous character, and it’s extremely satisfying to see this different facet of him that appears to be there slightly below his well-groomed, good-looking floor. We marvel all through the movie how good he actually is, and he does an amazing job of hiding behind appeal, wit, and tenderness. In case you’ve adopted his profession even a bit of bit, you’ll discover he’s laying himself naked on display screen, virtually simply being himself and counting on his pure charisma in almost each scene — you already know, till his character isn’t that individual anymore. If that is how he handles his first main position — and realizing how a lot he’s improved as a musician over time — I’m excited to see how he develops as an actor as he continues to participate in future movies.

Unsurprisingly, Pugh is revelatory within the position of Alice. She’s made a reputation for herself by enjoying this sort of panicked character who’s insatiable for data and reality, in addition to as an actor who can create real rigidity and dread together with her performances. This half is not any exception to that, and she or he continues to shine brightly as a girl in paramount misery. It might even be argued that this efficiency is even higher than her half in Midsommar, which is saying one thing contemplating how efficient her position in that movie is by the point the credit roll. She is fierce, electrical, and fueled by a hearth that feels distinctive to the soul of her character.

In loads of methods, Alice is a feminist hero for the ages, asserting at a climactic level within the movie that her life is her personal, and the way dare anybody attempt to rob her of that autonomy. It’s very on the nostril, however that doesn’t imply it doesn’t pack a punch or that it isn’t a reality we must always heed in 2022. Her voice is one which needs to be amplified, particularly in an age the place Roe vs. Wade has been gutted regardless of its overwhelming help all through the American populace. Girls have all the time had their rights totally bastardized, which is what makes not solely Florence’s efficiency pitch good in its rage however the movie’s plot developments all too life like in a heightened setting.

The movie is extremely entertaining and engrossing. From the start, you’re dying to know what the twist is as a result of it’s fairly apparent that there’s one. However there are a couple of locations I hoped for extra meat and fewer aesthetic. Chris Pine and Gemma Chan, the allegedly prolific chief of the Victory Challenge and his frigid but intriguing spouse, had been woefully underused within the movie, Chan particularly. With Pine’s character, he performs the enigmatic and sinister Frank, and whereas his legend looms massive throughout the Victory group, he doesn’t almost get sufficient display screen time for his malice and motives to be absolutely fleshed out. What we do see from him is undeniably intriguing, however extra would’ve helped the viewers get essentially the most full image of his insidiousness and its origins.

Equally, Chan’s Shelley is simply as mysterious as her allusive and charming husband, however she will get even much less time to point out it off than he does. She will get her comeuppance on the finish of the movie, however as a result of her character is hardly fleshed out, it doesn’t really feel earned, although it simply might’ve been with just a bit extra consideration to her journey alongside Frank.

Regardless of a couple of bumps within the highway with some flaws within the script and its character growth, Don’t Fear Darling stands out as an extremely enjoyable movie that doesn’t mince phrases on the subject of the message it’s attempting to ship to its viewers. Doing what’s proper is paramount to all else, and if it means blowing up your life to do it, you must. It’s good to see a movie ship a message of significance — and shed yet one more gentle on a serious concern within the methods society is backsliding with reference to girls’s rights — whereas additionally an thrilling, undeniably wild experience down into the depths of deception.

Associated Subjects: Venice Movie Competition

Lex Briscuso is an leisure and tradition author, critic, and radio host dwelling in Brooklyn. Along with writing information and criticism for /Movie, she is the top of social media at Dread Central, Dread Presents, and Epic Footage Group, and contributes criticism at Paste Journal. You’ll find her bylines at The Guardian, Fangoria, Vulture, Roger Ebert, EUPHORIA., Dread Central, and Shudder’s The Chew, and her horror and style radio present, YOUR NICHE IS DEAD, is reside Mondays at 5pm ET on impartial web station KPISSFM.