Talius Dike 
Don’t Worry Darling, Olivia Wilde’s highly anticipated psych thriller finally had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival yesterday and despite receiving a standing ovation from audiences for about 4 minutes, turns out critics aren’t all that impressed.
Following the success of 2019’s Booksmart, Wilde took to directing once again, this time, a story developed by Carey and Shane Van Dyke with screenplay written by Katie Silberman who also worked on Booksmart and acting talents from the likes of Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Chris Pine, Gemma Chan, Nick Kroll amongst others.
Don’t Worry Darling premiered at the 79th annual Venice Film Festival on Monday and if the reviews published so far are anything to go by, it fails to live up to the hype and expectations gotten from the trailer. Critics who saw the film had nothing but praise for Pugh’s performance but criticized the film’s direction and script dubbing it “unoriginal” and “predictable.” On review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, it currently sits at 45% from 24 reviews.
See what some of the critics had to say below;
Kate Erbland, IndieWire
“Don’t Worry Darling is so clearly, so obviously not set in an idyllic ’50s community that to say the film packs a twist is not at twist at all. It’s disingenuous, easy, cheeky — much like the film itself, which starts off strong before crumbling into baffling storytelling choices made worse by the revolting intentions behind them.”
Owen Gleiberman, Variety
“Between the pop ambition, the tasty dream visuals, and the presence of Harry Styles in his first lead role, Don’t Worry Darling should have no trouble finding an audience. But the movie takes you on a ride that gets progressively less scintillating as it goes along.”
Pete Hammond, Deadline
“On its own terms, Don’t Worry Darling is actually quite entertaining if you’re in the mood, even if Wilde’s candy-coated psychological thriller doesn’t rewrite the rules of the genre in any significant way. Despite having a prestigious Out of Competition slot for its world premiere today at Venice, this is a commercial movie more than anything else and the New Line Cinema production could do well with audiences.”
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“The film feels it has to avoid the obvious reason for Victory’s existence and go down the rabbit hole after something else: so when the switch is finally flipped to give us the big secret, it feels absurdly negligible and contrived, and the details are not thought through. Styles may or not be a talented actor; it’s not easy to tell from this, but the normally excellent Pugh has not been interestingly directed, certainly not compared with her work in broadly comparable movies such as Midsommar or The Falling.”
Compared to Booksmart, the early reception for Don’t Worry Darling can be considered quite disappointing especially considering all the drama trailing the film almost from the very beginning, but considering the pull from lead actors Florence Pugh and Harry Styles, one can still expect a decent box-office run for the film.
Don’t Worry Darling will be released in theatres on September 23.
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