Spoilers Don't Worry Darling

[theenglish]

I'm a little surprised I haven't seen this discussed as it is definitely a Science Fiction film. Florence Pugh gives a great performance and Harry Styles does a good job as well. I know the movie was marred by a lot of controversy but it is a great story and Olivia Wilde does a competent job directing.

One of the controversies is how the ending was changed from the original script, but the story and its themes seem to remain intact.

It has a Stepford Wives vibe, but the story itself is firmly rooted in the MAGA era.

I don't want to post spoilers in the opening thread, because even though one accustomed to these type of stories will have an idea what is going on--the final reveal is pretty horrific, even if the details are not shown on screen.

Has anyone else seen this and have some opinions?

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I had no idea this was even scifi related until you posted this in this forum. The few clips I had seen made it look like a generic stalking husband chases after fleeing wife story, which I had no desire to see. Now that I know it has a skiffy element to the story that raises my interest in it considerably.

 

[Starkers]

There's a moment early on where Pugh cracks a perfect looking egg and there's nothing inside. Frankly I thought that was a perfect metaphor for the film.

I think Wilde's direction is good, the film looks amazing. The cast do a good job. Florence Pugh is incapable of being anything less than brilliant and that the film works on any level is primarily down to her. Chris Pine is also very good and frankly I didn't think Harry Styles was that bad. Is he as good as Pugh and Pine? No. Is he atrocious? Not remotely.

It's the story/script that lets it down. I kept hoping they were going somewhere interesting, that the reveal wasn't going to be the obvious one but no the film is exactly the film you think it's going to be. And it left me with many dangling plot points/plot holes.

Spoiler: Spoilers

Part of the reason Harry Styles' character is pissed off is because he can't get a job yet once he has Pugh inside the simulation he seems to find a job easily. I get that maybe he'd lowered his standards to embrace Victory but presumably he has to earn enough to not only pay for the simulation, but also rent on their apartment etc so it must be a decent paying job?

So Alice lies on her back all day with her eyes permanently wired open. Never mind that Jack puts drops in her eyes, I don't think that's really going to compensate for eight hours with your eyelids wired open, even before we get into the issue of bed sores. I can't recall if there's a drip but presumably she has to be fed somehow. Is she catheterised? If not things are going to get very messy. Frankly I don't think Jack would be coming home and just plugging in, he'd have a whole heap of cleaning to do first. Anyone with even a vague understanding of how much care and attention a quadriplegic or similarly disabled person needs must realise that Pugh's situation isn't sustainable for more than a few days.

And does anyone miss her? Do friends and family and colleagues not wonder why this surgeon has quit her job? They seem to be still living in the same apartment. Does no one where pop round?

Of course at the end she escapes. Now first off if your simulation has a means of escape and you have guard programs of some kind they why aren't those programs surrounding the exit door? Why instead do they manifest in cars to pursue Alice? I mean just so you can have a car chase, right? Doesn't make a lick of sense.

And hoorah Alice has escaped! Or has she? Basically she's going to wake up tied to a bed lying next to a dead man. Then what? Can she escape? Can she call for help? Will her voice even still work? It's a horrible ending.

A few other annoyances. So Bunny knows it's a simulation and purposefully entered it so she could be with her kids who died. Except she then spends all her time in the simulation ignoring her children/treating them like shit? I guess that could be because she knows it isn't real but again feels stupid.

What's the deal with the earth tremors? Is it just set dressing? It's highlighted as a mystery then ignored.

Frank's wife stabs him at the end and says "It's my turn now." What does that mean? Did she know it was a simulation as well? Is she going to take over the simulation? If she is then with Frank gone who's going to tend to her real body?

Sorry for the rant I'm all for suspending disbelief but films this stupid just annoy the hell out of me, especially when there's so much talent involved. And the worst thing is I didn't hate it, it zips along, it looks amazing and frankly I'd watch Pugh read the telephone directory, it's just infuriating that it winds up less than the sum of its parts!

 

[theenglish]

I agree with a lot of that, but I think the ending and resolution work because...

Spoiler: Ending of Movie

...the ending is so horrific. I could be wrong but I think it is a different apartment in that last scene, and he is physically in a pretty horrible state. I had assumed that he had moved her somewhere else and probably took a fake identity because Alice has been kidnapped. At the end, Alice escapes back to the real world--and we don't see what happens because she's heading back to a pretty horrible death most likely. The same for the other "wives". Notice that their doesn't seem to be the requirement for a pre-existing relationship so many of the other women were probably abducted which is why they have the same story about meeting their husbands.

Also, these guys in the real world are mainly guys who "can't meet women" so this is their solution. Frank's rhetoric is very much Incel rhetoric--which is bottom line what the movie is about.

I personally like it when a movie doesn't explain everything. In fact, I read online that the script was changed to remove a lot of scenes and explanations from the real world outside the simulation. Also, it seems in the original script that Alice dies inside the simulation; however, I think this ending works better as a horror movie style ending. Although, many people in the audience are not going to get that, which makes it work better.

 

[Ethros]

It felt like it was a movie made for people who've never seen any piece of science fiction before and perhaps might find it "new." If you have it's really not.

 

[JD]

I watched it a couple months ago and I really liked it. I honestly wasn't sure what was actually going on until reveal, but even I'll admit, it wasn't the most original idea ever.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I'm a little surprised I haven't seen this discussed as it is definitely a Science Fiction film. Florence Pugh gives a great performance and Harry Styles does a good job as well. I know the movie was marred by a lot of controversy but it is a great story and Olivia Wilde does a competent job directing.

One of the controversies is how the ending was changed from the original script, but the story and its themes seem to remain intact.

It has a Stepford Wives vibe, but the story itself is firmly rooted in the MAGA era.

I don't want to post spoilers in the opening thread, because even though one accustomed to these type of stories will have an idea what is going on--the final reveal is pretty horrific, even if the details are not shown on screen.

Has anyone else seen this and have some opinions?

I saw a behind the Scenes where one of them said that Don't worry Darling is the Stepford Wives, but the actor may have made an inaccurate statement.

Which if the actress was on the level, it means that they paid for the book and then did something completely different, although maybe they had to pay for the Stepford Wives book because their completely original story was not all that original.

 

[theenglish]

Olivia Wilde was give her choice of a set of what were considered the best unproduced scripts in 2019. What she chose was this script which was a satiric take on Incel's and Toxic Masculinity. Wilde had the script re-written and turned it into a horror movie. Headlines say the original ending was much darker, but after reading a synopsis of the original script, I think this is actually more horrific even though it plays this trick so that on the surface it seems triumphant.

****UNTAGGED SPOILERS PERMITTED BEYOND THIS POINT***

 

[Guy Gardener]

Olivia Wilde was give her choice of a set of what were considered the best unproduced scripts in 2019. What she chose was this script which was a satiric take on Incel's and Toxic Masculinity. Wilde had the script re-written and turned it into a horror movie. Headlines say the original ending was much darker, but after reading a synopsis of the original script, I think this is actually more horrific even though it plays this trick so that on the surface it seems triumphant.

I heard what I heard, even if google does not verify what I heard.

I was annoyed that they were not clear as to why the wife was put into the matrix.

On one hand misogynists in the future wanted to turn their wives into sex puppets for 12 hours a day, and then they worked a menial job for the other 12 hours to pay for server fees for hosting her personality, because they were annoyed that their smarter wives could earn three time their pay packet.

On the other hand, there was a point in the the movie were it was unclear as to whether the wife was almost rape/murdered by an assailant and could have been put into a vegetative state by the attack, where-after ridiculous super science could have only save her life by putting Pugh into artificial reality where she was 30 percent prettier and 600 percent hornier.

 

[theenglish]

Not sure how serious you are, but it is strongly implied that the majority of the women were abducted.

Alice was never in an accident. She was just remembering her previous life as a doctor (EDIT: This was corrected) in that scene.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The attack definitely happened.

It may have been a read herring, or nothing towards the plot what soever, but that's just weird.

The husbands shame was that he couldn't find a job, but the detriment to their sex matrix was that he had to work really hard (in the real world) to have a sex matrix, where the wife let him go hog wild. If he had worked really hard to begin with, then he wouldn't have needed to put her in a sex matrix.

Obviously if the husband just found work and paid for half the rent before the wife got put into a medical coma, then she would have let him climb up on top of her twice a week for commitment sex, because she respected him, when otherwise she don't want no scrub.

The only way that the story could happen where a misogynist could put his wife into a sex coma against her will, was if he was the worst person in the world, and the service maintaining her sex coma was deeply criminal and they would be asking for exorbitant fees to maintain the illegal sex coma, that a loser working for minimum wage could never afford.

Only a man earning enough money to keep a woman happy could afford to put a woman in an illegal sex coma.

It's not logical.

Obviously the company was whoring out the wife to other men who were not her husband, because they were criminals maintaining a criminal Enterprise and as the Wife's personality probably did not experience time at the same rate, as the real world, they had relative months to farm her out sexually.

Pugh could have had sex with 200 random dudes between every 8 hour slot where her husband played horny 1960s business man, but her brain was wiped and she had no idea that anything untoward happened.

Only an idiot doesn't maximize profit.

 

[theenglish]

Sorry, I thought you were implying that she had been assaulted in the "real world".

 

[Guy Gardener]

So many real worlds depending on your perspective.

In the world where the character is a Doctor.

 

[Starbreaker]

The movie's not that good. The acting was all fine, but the pacing was terrible and there's way too many long and boring conversations about what's "real."

 

[theenglish]

So many real worlds depending on your perspective.

In the world where the character is a Doctor.

Okay, so I didn't misunderstand---but I am curious as to where this assault is referenced in the movie. The hospital scene where she is seen working on trying to save herself? Or elsewhere?

Her husband's line of work is never really explained but it is implied it had something to do with computers--in the scene where he is first heard listening to Frank's Incel podcast. I don't think he is, at least knowingly, allowing his wife to be raped by other men throughout the day is valid though. In the final scene, he tells her that she gets to live in the paradise world all the time, while he has to go and work in the real world.

 

[Guy Gardener]

There's a chance I'm misremembering.

But I recall her being attacked on the street on the way home from work.

 

[Commander Troi]

Just watched it and, due to this thread, kept running through various SF scenarios while watching. I thought they did a good job of building the creepiness factor and ramping it up. Florence Pugh made it better than it would've been with a lesser actor. Overall, I enjoyed it, but doubt I'd watch it again.

Anyone else catch that our hero's name was Alice?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Just watched it and, due to this thread, kept running through various SF scenarios while watching. I thought they did a good job of building the creepiness factor and ramping it up. Florence Pugh made it better than it would've been with a lesser actor. Overall, I enjoyed it, but doubt I'd watch it again.

Anyone else catch that our hero's name was Alice?

Olivia Wilde's character was called "Bunny" which could reference the March Hair or The White Rabbit.

Harry as Jack, could have been the knave of hearts/Jack or Hearts.

 

[theenglish]

There was so much potential in this movie. I have to admit that I didn't pick up on the Wonderland references--that's pretty cool. I wish the original script hadn't been rewritten in the way it was, because I think it could have been a much better, and deeper film. What we're left with a glimpses into what it might have been.