Don't Worry Darling (2022)

Movie · 2022 · Science Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Horror · 2h 3m · R · English

Curator score: 1.9/10 (1.5M ratings)

Are you ready to live the life you deserve?

Overview

Alice and Jack are lucky to be living in the idealized community of Victory, the experimental company town housing the men who work for the top-secret Victory Project and their families. But when cracks in their idyllic life begin to appear, exposing flashes of something much more sinister lurking beneath the attractive façade, Alice can’t help questioning exactly what they’re doing in Victory, and why.

Ratings

Director

Olivia Wilde

Production

Vertigo Entertainment, New Line Cinema

Cast

Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Chris Pine, Olivia Wilde, KiKi Layne, Gemma Chan, Nick Kroll, Sydney Chandler, Kate Berlant, Asif Ali, Douglas Smith, Timothy Simons, Ari'el Stachel, Steve Berg, Daisy Sudeikis, Marcello Julian Reyes, Monroe Cline, Angel Mammoliti, Nataly Santiago, Daniel Nishio

Curator Review

Verdict

A glossy, high-concept thriller with strong visual design and a compelling central performance, but the mystery is uneven and the payoff divides audiences. It works best as a stylish, paranoid fable about control, domestic performance, and the seduction of curated perfection.

Best for

  • Viewers who enjoy suburban dystopias and reality-bending mysteries
  • Fans of polished, mid-budget studio thrillers with a strong aesthetic
  • People interested in feminist allegory and social satire
  • Audiences who don’t mind a story that prioritizes mood and theme over airtight plotting

Skip if

  • You want a tightly engineered twist thriller
  • You’re impatient with symbolism and allegory
  • You prefer subtle, low-key horror over heightened style
  • You’re looking for a consistently satisfying third act

Overview

Don't Worry Darling is at its strongest when it leans into unease: the immaculate production design, retro-futurist sheen, and creeping sense that every smile is part of a script. Florence Pugh gives the film its pulse, grounding the story even when the screenplay starts reaching for bigger ideas than it can fully organize.

Worth noting

The movie clearly wants to sit in the lineage of domestic-dystopia stories about control, gender, and manufactured bliss. That ambition gives it texture, and the best stretches are genuinely unsettling, but the mystery is more effective as atmosphere than as puzzle-box storytelling.

Bottom line

If you respond to films that feel like a polished nightmare about conformity and performance, there’s enough here to recommend. If you need the logic to land as hard as the imagery, the cracks in Victory may be too visible to ignore.

Top Letterboxd reviews

Alle (4★) · 46542 likes

Movie about the dangers of letting men have and listen to podcasts

Tim (2★) · 32836 likes

the truman show but harry styles violently eats pussy

Hannah Bensley · 31262 likes

my favorite thing about the movie is that it feels like a movie. it feels like a real like, you know go to the theatre, film, movie

davidehrlich (1.5★) · 20923 likes

White Mirror.

demi adejuyigbe · 19222 likes

standing outside of the theater telling every white woman that leaves “so messed up. i would never do that to you”

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Topics

dystopian thriller, psychological mystery, feminist sci-fi, suburban horror, paranoia, retro-futurism, satire, controlled utopia, stylized suspense, domestic nightmare

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