Review: “Don’t Worry, Honey” Goes Beyond Off-Screen Gossip

In the last two weeks, there was only talk of “Do not worry, dear” , unfortunately, for the wrong reasons. From last-minute changes in the cast, to friction with the director Olivia Wilde going through a recent (and false!) spit of the protagonist in the supporting role in Venice Festival that movie seemed doomed to cancellation on social media.

Fact is, tumultuous backstages are nothing new. Let’s take one of the best movies of all time as an example. “Apocalypse Now” (1979), directed by Francis Ford Coppola .

The production of the feature was so confusing that it won a documentary of its own, “Francis Ford Coppola – The Apocalypse of a Filmmaker” (1991), telling several stories from the film set.

Here are some of them.

Coppola had a hard time getting funding for the film, which was long delayed, so he put $30 million into production out of his own pocket.

In addition, the protagonist of the film suffered a heart attack and Marlon Brando made “Apocalypse Now” purely for the money: it would be 3 million dollars on the condition that he does not work on weekends and not after 5:30 pm.

Comparison made just to contextualize that “controversies” in cinema existed since before Instagram, not even the best productions are safe from problems.

Letting gossip influence the viewer’s experience of watching a movie, and to affect, for example, a final opinion of the viewer, borders on disservice.

Now, let’s get to what really matters.

To the sound of musicians like Joao Gilberto “Don’t Worry, Honey” tells the story of Alice (Florence Pugh ) and Jack (Harry Styles). They live in the 1950s in a gated community in California known as Project Victory.

Over there, everything is exaggeratedly perfect. There are always clean housewives who satisfy their hardworking husbands in every way. There’s good food, the women take ballet lessons and sip drinks by the pool.

However, one day, a friend of Alice’s starts showing signs of paranoia. She acts strange, becomes more reclusive and implies, through disconnected phrases, that she is stuck in that place.

Everyone ignores this woman, except Alice herself, who now wants to discover what is behind this exemplary community.

Florence Pugh’s performance is the highlight of the film. Following the same line of terror “Midsommar – Evil Waits for Night” (2019) their expressions fit perfectly with a soundtrack that transforms throughout the film: the strokes are smooth at the beginning, until they reach the height of tension from the middle to the end of the film.

So much expressiveness contrasts with the mediocre performance of Harry Styles . Considered one of the biggest pop stars today, he is still in the early stages of his acting career.

He made his debut in a small role in the movie “Dunkirk” (2017) and now he has achieved greater prominence in “Don’t Worry, Honey”.

However, on Florence’s side, Harry struggles, but he dwarfs himself, showing that he still has a long way to go to be considered a good actor. Next to the novice, there are Chris Pine and Olivia Wilde herself, two good actors who help to brighten up the pop singer.

The costumes and cinematography earn points too, they are well structured, colorful and the script is well tied. At first, however, the first turn in the history of this psychological thriller plot is predictable.

The development of this plot twist takes us by surprise, standing there between a “Truman Show” and an episode of “Black Mirror”. In a discussion about machismo, the film ends up being a portrait of a dystopia that we don’t want to arrive.

I hope that with “Don’t Worry Darling” entering the commercial circuit, the viewer’s eyes will be on this drama film rather than the off-screen drama.

The movie “Don’t Worry, Honey” is showing in Brazilian cinemas.

Watch the trailer: