Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling

★★★ Watched 07 Jan 2023

I didn’t understand why the NYT called this “wobbly feminism” until the last forty minutes of the film. The first hour and half were visually pleasing to someone like me, a fan of Wes Anderson aesthetics and Kubrick symmetry … but the plot was weak, lacking distinction and incredibly cliche. The dialogue was cringe. It was clear they were living in some kind of simulation and I figured as much that the feminism was meant to be extracted from watching wives do laborious housework. In fact- it was quite punchier than that. When the bubble finally bursts, as it’s been teasing that it will the whole film, we see Jack in the real world, a jobless 29 year old, emasculated by his hardworking Girlfriend. Now home alone he spends too much time online and  enters the fray of mens rights activism which leads him to the farthest possible position - stealing his wife’s body and agency so he can digitally keep her in a tiny cage forever . Jack and his wife have a vibrant sex life in the simulation, something their lives lacked in the real world. The question of course becomes- without agency or choice to be in the simulation is Alice kept hostage and raped everyday? And who are the other wives? Kept perpetually young or pregnant- it’s all male fantasy. These women cook and clean and fuck. They do their hair and makeup every day, men of the modern world designed them that way. Goddamnit I think Margaret Atwood would have liked this godforsaken movie