Olivia Wilde’s messy Don’t Worry Darling is an active concern, though Florence Pugh can rest easy
As far as depictions of male rage go, cinema has given us no shortage of iconic and memorable portrayals, from Robert De Niro’s quietly simmering psychopath in. What both of these films did is take us into a world of rejection, isolation and alienation, where they could skewer, without excusing, the social circumstances that breed a certain kind of dangerous man.
Set in a pristinely manicured and obscenely sunny development in the middle of the desert, the film immediately transports us to a beautiful, bygone era. The men all drive shiny, pastel convertibles and wear sharply tailored suits, while the women keep an immaculate home, spending their mornings cleaning and shopping and their evenings making dinner and drowning in cocktails.
Viewers glimpse the world of Don't Worry Darling through the eyes of Alice and Jack, a blissfully married couple played by Pugh and Harry Styles.In many interviews about the film, Wilde has spoken about this moment in particular as summing up her approach to, to centre on female pleasure as much as possible, which is a generous act in general. But in a film about the confines and contours of male entitlement, well, it doesn’t quite make sense.
Wilde has said real-life figures in the men’s rights movement like Jordan Peterson helped inspire the character of Frank , the charismatic leader and de facto guru of this valley of guys and dolls. Certainly, Frank appears to be hiding something, though his brand of machismo doesn’t come across as menacing so much as accidentally hilarious.