Don't Worry Darling

Director: Olivia Wilde
Starring: Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Olivia Wilde, Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne, Chris Pine, Nick Kroll, Sydney Chandler, Asif Ali, Kate Berlant, Timothy Simons, Douglas Smith, Ari'el Stachel, Dita Von Teese
Running Time: 123 min.
Rating: R

**The Following Review Contains Major Plot Spoilers For 'Don't Worry Darling' **

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

Hardly the disaster it's been purported to be, Olivia Wilde's psychological thriller Don't Worry Darling does have more than a few things going for it, regardless of all rumors surrounding how strained the production may have been. What's on screen matters most, making it somewhat ironic that Wilde's direction and Florence Pugh's lead performance are the film's two biggest strengths, mostly eclipsing some admitted deficiencies. The latter also again earns all the justified the hype anointing her  one of our most talented contemporary actresses. It's not a coincidence that of those scarred by the commercial and critical drubbing this took, she escapes completely unscathed, if not more appreciated than before. 

Recalling elements of The Stepford Wives, Get Out, Pleasantville, The Matrix, The Truman Show, Inception and probably a few others, Katie Silberman's script may not be entirely original and is largely set-up and mood, but it slowly builds to a satisfying enough payoff that prevents the film from buckling under its own ambitions. And however you may feel about the execution or conceit, the ending twist is definitely a doozy worth sticking around for. A mess at times, portions play like your standard thriller, even as its visual look and performances work in raising it a notch. But what it most feels like is a prototypical sophomore effort from a hotshot director who had a big hit out of the gate and is given leeway by the studio to do what they want. And both for better and worse, Wilde does that. 

Alice (Pugh) and Jack (Harry Styles) Chambers live in the idyllic, utopian 1950's-like community of Victory, California, a small company town where the men go to work everyday at Victory Headquarters manufacturing mysterious products. Heavily discouraged from asking what their husbands actually do or venturing anywhere near the desert headquarters, the wives stay at home to clean and prepare dinner for when they return. Alice has a circle of friends that include neighbor Bunny (Wilde), Peg (Kate Berlant) and Margaret (KiKi Layne), but when Margaret starts exhibiting alarmingly disturbing behavior after losing her son in the desert, she's ostracized upon her return to town. 

Suspecting there's more to Margaret's story than meets the eye, Alice's suspicions heighten after witnessing what she believes is a plane crash in the desert and begins experiencing many of the same nightmarish hallucinations that plagued her friend. Soon, this catches the attention of Victory's enigmatic but seemingly benevolent leader, Frank (Pine), who's clearly hiding something. But as Jack rises up the ranks at the company, Alice must decide whether it's worth risking the comfortable life they've built together to escape a controlling force far more sinister and dangerous than anyone in Victory ever imagined.

What's immediately apparent even before all the story's pieces are put together is that this isn't taking place during the 1950's, and even while all the cars, wardrobe and myriad of era-specific music may signify otherwise, there's something else going on. Without any recognizable or meaningful history, the characters seemed to have been plucked from somewhere and placed in a very stylized, heightened version of what that era would look and feel like filtered through present day. The film straddles that line particularly well in making us believe these people would fall in line without a second thought, mistaking the cult-like creepiness for stability and comfort. It's clear none of them are there by choice, whether or not they realize it, and thus far, most don't. 

The townsfolk are the living embodiment of "going through the motions," as husbands pull out of their adjacent driveways for work in synchronicity every morning as their wives wave them off. If it feels like a staged production, earning those Truman Show comparisons mostly through DP Matthew Libatique's lensing and Katie Byron's authentically retro production design. For many, this will be where the praise begins and ends, as the film's feel supports its concept more than the actual content, which eventually ends up in familiar territory. 

In Wilde's defense, this is a more worthwhile attempt than expected in replicating this well-worn formula, mainly due to Pugh, who's so good at playing a woman torn between this loyalty to her husband and the growing disorientation that she's merely a cog in a mysterious, controlling machine. Danger mounts the more curious she becomes and her questions are unwelcome intrusions hardly looked kindly upon by Victory's mastermind, Frank, and to a lesser degree, his wife Shelley (Gemma Chan). 

In a massive departure, Chris Pine's all in on this, taking full advantage of the opportunity to play the kind of sleazy villain he's rarely cast as. And while those comparisons to author and motivational speaker Jordan Peterson (off whom Frank is supposedly based) become more apparent later, it's also reminiscent of Tom Cruise's similarly nefarious turn in Magnolia. Convincingly good at playing bad, you almost wish Pine had more to do, but his cat-and-mouse game with Alice during a memorable dinner table face-off effectively sets the stage for the stockholm syndromed neighbors to doubt her as they did Margaret.

Jack's the wild card, too ingrained in this lifestyle to notice this as anything other than an Alice problem. Harry Styles doesn't register much early on but as the story's underlying layers are peeled back and he's given more complicated shades to play, his performance starts coming alive. It's not absurd to suggest he'll have a decent movie career and holds up just fine in some of the more dramatic scenes, even if the far superior Pugh carries him through the wacky finish. As for the film's much talked about sex scenes, there sure are a lot of them, but existing mostly to shock and titillate, served up as a stark contrast to the repressed society these characters inhabit.    

When the town's shady charlatan Dr. Collins (Timothy Simons) and Frank's red suited henchmen descend upon Alice, Wilde gives us a last act that's certainly a choice. It was inevitably going in this direction, with the only remaining questions being how and why. The not so subtle implications that all of what these characters are experiencing either wasn't real or a simulation of some sort is confirmed, even as we're taken aback by how literally Silberman's screenplay leans into that premise. 

After being gaslit left and right, Alice awakens to the reality (or lack thereof) in front of her, igniting a change in the women with her actions rather than words. There's a lot of baggage to unpack with the idea of characters held hostage in some kind of sexist, throw back male fantasy prison that seems to have sprung from the mind of a fringe podcaster. Intentionally or not, the movie's kind of fuzzy on the details beyond the "real" Jack being an unkempt loser who's stripped surgeon Alice of all autonomy under the guise of rescuing their marriage with this simulation. 

Viewing this entire experimental society as a metaphorical rape might recontextualize those sex scenes, but if that seems like a jumbling of various ideas you also wouldn't be wrong. It all leads to a pretty spectacular car chase sequence that proves Wilde could probably make an exciting action movie down the line if she chooses, or now more accurately, if anyone lets her. Still, you can't help but wish the whole thing was a little crazier and wonder if spending more time on the background and origins behind the reveal would have helped or hindered the experience. 

As much criticism as the film's gotten, it's at least easy see why Pugh initially decided to be a part of it, as her work makes the heady material more watchable than it has any right being. Neither the putrid, self indulgent spectacle some were fearing or the culturally significant thinkpiece it's aiming to be, Don't Worry Darling lands in some weird gray area in between. It just may take a little while to process exactly where.        

Looking For Alaska

Creator: Josh Schwartz
Starring: Charlie Plummer, Kristine Froseth, Denny Love, Jay Lee, Sofia Vassilieva, Landry Bender, Uriah Shelton, Jordan Connor, Timothy Simons, Ron Cephas Jones
Release Date: 2019

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

Mention author John Green's name and you're likely to receive varying degrees of responses largely dependent on that viewers' age, gender, familiarity with young adult lit and pop culture in general. And it's just as likely that bringing up the writer of bestselling teen weepies such as "The Fault in our Stars" and "Paper Towns" will also induce some groans and eye-rolling because he's often accused of pedaling fluff without the substance to back it up. As the YA genre's taken off in the past decade with his and other contemporaries seeing their works adapted into big money movies, Green's emerged as even more of a punching bag. And it's difficult to argue, with dialogue and plotting that isn't exactly subtle, leaving little doubt he's writing exclusively for that demographic, and has no plans to stop pouring all the emotion that entails directly onto the page.

"Looking For Alaska" was Green's first novel, dealing with heavy and disturbing enough themes to frequently land it on lists of challenged books by schools and libraries in the years following its 2005 publication. The O.C. and Gossip Girl creator Josh Schwartz has been trying to develop it into a feature film since, and now, almost fifteen years later, it arrives as an limited 8-episode Hulu series. Seemingly too late, and yet strangely right on schedule.

We'll never know the kind of movie the original incarnation could have been if it came out as John Green fandom was taking off, but it's hard to imagine it being very good. It feels like the material desperately needed this time, distance and breathing room so everyone could step back and assess our culture through the rearview mirror. Now, with the proper delivery, the entire series becomes a clever, meta commentary on what that movie was supposed to be and how many of its ideas can be flipped on its head a decade-plus later.

By setting the series in the mid-2000's time period during which the book was published, Schwartz does the unthinkable in invoking nostalgia for a period and its music we haven't yet been tested in harboring nostalgia for. It's his finest hour, or rather eight, as he follows in the footsteps of Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas by abandoning the traditional network model for Hulu earlier this year, to astonishing creative results. But if FOX trying to squeeze every last bit of juice it could out of The O.C. led to its early demise, the lasting legacy Schwartz's show left was its music. The mid aughts were kind of a last gasp for defining periods in music pre-smart phone, making the indie rock explosion so prominently showcased on that show ripe for reappreciation here.

That sound, an audio snapshot of the time, is something relived by these characters and us, with Schwartz pulling off the impossible in making Green's material seem cool, at its best giving off Stand By Me coming-of-age vibes. Subverting expectations, it invests nearly every supporting character with as much depth as its co-leads, while introducing us to young talents you can actually bank on becoming huge stars off the strength of their performances. A trip into the past well worth taking, it intelligently balances humor with an emotionally crippling tragedy, making for the rare adaptation that lacks the baggage and one-dimensional stereotypes populating this genre.

It's 2005 and nerdy, introspective teen Miles Halter (Charlie Plummer) is told by his parents that he's leaving his Orlando, Florida public school to attend Culver Creek Academy, a progressive private boarding school in Alabama that more closely resembles a sleepaway camp. While his father attended years ago, Miles isn't nearly as interested in school as he is last words. Famous people's last words, to be exact. It may be a strange, morbid obsession, but it does command the attention of his new roomate, Chip "The Colonel" Martin (Denny Love), who ironically nicknames him "Pudge," and the free-spirited, enigmatic Alaska Young (Kristine Froseth), whom Miles immediately falls for at first glance.

Along with Alaska and The Colonel's friend Takumi (Jay Lee), Miles is soon entrenched in the their long-standing feud with the "Weekday Warriors," a group of wealthy students they frequently pull pranks on. All this occurs while trying to avoid capture by the academy's strict, mustachioed headmaster, Mr. Starnes (Timothy Simons), aka "The Eagle," and taking in the philosophical insight of their ailing religion teacher, Mr. Hyde (Ron Cephas Jones). But it isn't all fun and games, as the days dwindle down and build to an accident that will forever alter who everyone grows to become.

The show lulls you into thinking it will be all about Miles' journey into young adulthood (i.e. William Miller in Almost Famous), as seen through his eyes as the awkward narrator. And it is at least partially that, but not to the extent you may have imagined, as that kind of one-dimensional storytelling approach doesn't really fly anymore, making for one of the many ways the series becomes the unlikeliest adaptation that would have spawned from it a decade ago. We get a lot of time with these characters and the rather originally unusual school setting inspired from an actual boarding academy Green attended in his youth. It works really well, simultaneously recalling high school and summer camp movies and helping to create a hazy nostalgia that runs pretty deep throughout.

The Colonel, named as such by Alaska due to his strategic, militaristic planning of pranks and schemes, serves as Miles' introduction into this world and it's a testament to the writing that there's an even more compelling backstory as to how he arrived at Culver than our narrator, whom he eventually draws out of his shell. The endlessly charismatic and dryly hilarious Denny Love outright steals the show in playing a character who doesn't easily suffer fools and isn't about to let his newest roomate become one, operating under a strict moral code, into which we get more insight with each episode.

There's a deep-seeded reason accounting for The Colonel's need to act as he does, but the writers are smart enough not to shove that explanation down our throats and instead let the talented actor show it, as we're never quite sure what will next set him off on one of his sarcastically truthful rants. And Miles, played with figgiting, befuddled excellence by Plummer, finds himself on the receiving end of many of them. If it seems insulting to only refer to Alaska as the object of Miles' obsession, or feel we should be past that tired trope, you'd be happy to know that Schwartz and the writers agree. Frequently going out of their way to slap him back into reality, they refuse to let him or us view her as any less than a completely messy and complicated character.

It helps that an Kristine Froseth is a revelation in the role, calling upon an entire spectrum of emotions to make Alaska at once disloyal and completely trustworthy, both abrasive and sweet, and a drinking, smoking literary-quoting narcissist on a path toward self-destruction, perhaps unintentionally taking her friends down with her.

To lift a phrase from the time, Alaska isn't a "Manic Pixie Dream Girl," whose entire existence is predicated on the shy, over-eager Miles winning her over, since, well, she's too challenging a personality for something like that, rarely knowing who she is herself. When viewers get Alaska alone (such as in one memorable local college excursion), she's so overcome by insecurity that merely functioning as a normal human being becomes difficult. Frequently, she can't, and yet, through all this, Froseth manages to outwardly maintain this girl's confident, likable facade throughout, frustrating everyone within her radius. Luckily for viewers, embracing this mercurial character isn't a prerequisite since we fully understand what she much she means to those who do.

The adults and other supporting characters are similarly drawn with depth and care, given time to their stories that couldn't have been explored in a 120-minute film version. So good in his Emmy-winning This is Us guest turn, Ron Cephas Jones does equally affecting work here as Culver's wise religious instructor, Mr. Hyde, another potentially contentious role that could have easily been a cliché in the hands of a lesser performer or writers. The performance sneaks up on you, culminating in a Thanksgiving episode that lays his full history on the table, giving Jones an hour to flesh this person out, and making all the surrounding characters that much richer for it.

The other faculty member, Timothy Simons' The Eagle, spends a lot of time playing a colder Rooney to the student Buellers, until the layers slowly start getting peeled back, culminating with his true motivations and fears bubbling to the surface in unexpected ways by series close.

Miles' Russian girlfriend Lara (Sofia Vassilieva), transcends her role as the inevitable third wheel in his Alaska infatuation with an agency and determination that eventually makes her incredibly relatable. The only supporting player arguably given the short end of the stick is Jay Lee's Takumi, who mainly serves as a sounding board for everyone, lacking any real purpose of his own until the big event ocurs. But once it does, his role comes more clearly into focus. Even the Colonel's mom, Dolores (Deneen Tyler), is written and performed intelligently enough that her backstory seems as substantial as just about anything else on screen.

Much of why this story initially draws you in is because the stakes are surprisingly low. It's fun just hanging out with these well drawn characters for six episodes and listening to them Dawson's Creek-speak about literature, philosophy and the meaning of life. And while that very prospect may have other viewers looking for the nearest window to jump out of, there is a clever, self-awareness to all of it that makes it feel more reminiscent of something like Dazed and Confused than the teen shows it's most likely to be compared.

Of course, the real language of the series can be found in its ipod-ready soundtrack, which contains a murderer's row of artists from the mid 2000's such as The Killers, Rilo Kiley, The Postal Service, Modest Mouse, The White Stripes, The Strokes, Spoon, Coldplay, The Hives, Outkast, Jet and Kelly Clarkson. And that's not even including the many stripped-down covers of songs from the era punctuating key moments, with Schwartz and music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas deserving credit for wisely picking their spots in not making any of it feel intrusive or distracting.

Early on, it's given away that we're careening toward a tragic death, and even those unfamiliar with the novel will quickly deduce whose, as we're all but told in the opening minutes. The surprise comes in how it's handled, when all pretense of the fun and comradarie this series is built on prior to episode six is extinguished in a matter of minutes. Taking its place is grief, some mystery, and a closure of sorts for all involved.

Shows in all genres tend to go out of their way to avoid dwelling on the immediate aftermath of a character's death because it's an audience downer, requiring the writers, directors and actors to tonally readjust. The fear of doing that has become so great that showrunners have even pulled out time jumps and flashforwards to exclusively avoid depicting prolonged grief on screen. Looking For Alaska runs toward what other shows avoid by realizing that a major character loss can work as a natural extension to what came before, resulting in a deeper exploration of the remaining ones as they wrestle with its consequences.

Having gotten so much time with these characters as a unit and individually, when the death hits, it really lands, as a full two episodes are spent watching an entire school of students and faculty grieve in wildly different ways. And yet the show still manages to adjust course once more, with a finale that somehow not only provides big laughs, but a genuine sense of finality. There won't be another season because there's literally no more story left to tell, making a limited series template the ideal vehicle in adapting Green's novel. But what couldn't have been anticipated was just how much it would improve upon it.