Reaction Shots: Don’t Worry Darling. Your Movie Sucks.
Plus a review of Bodies Bodies Bodies and the Noah Berlatsky Award for Terrible Take
Falling With Styles
Olivia Wilde should have sighed a sense of relief that Don’t Worry Darling was a modest box office success. If not for the film, it’s for the endless cycle of controversies that could have marred the film’s appeal. One of the first negative PRs is Olivia Wilde’s relationship with actors, particularly with Florence Pugh. I recapped that it was about Pugh’s discomfort of doing a sex scene with Harry Styles, which Wilde claimed was about her being a good queer ally. Then there were claims that Wilde was absent during filming, and Pugh has to take caretaker duties. Next, she appeared on the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival, sans the premiere there along with the rest of the cast. To make matters worse, there’s a video that seems like Styles had spat on Chris Pine). After the release, came another rumour that Wilde and Pugh performed a screaming match, and the 40 or so crew members wrote an open letter defending the director, writing about how awesome their experience was on-set.
For as long as there are on-set dramas, curiosity is often the inevitable effect. The ethereal logic that motivates moviegoers is “if I heard this much about a movie and its woes, surely it must be worth watching.” In the case of Don’t Worry Darling, except for a couple of exquisite compositions, it ebbs and flows in ways that a story about some utopian wonderland is not what it seems. Even the big reveal is not even big or a reveal. It’s the kind of step in that you don’t bring any creativity. Wilde certainly has grown as a stylist; as much as Booksmart strongly annoyed me, it did have some striking shots, even if it doesn’t hold much narrative utility. And it’s clear that with her ill-advised comments on the sex scenes between Florence Pugh and Harry Styles, she wants to be seen as an auteur with an extraordinary vision, becoming a role model for women who would like to direct films at some point in their career.
The other main attraction is Harry Styles, a global pop star who seems to hold two accents at once. It’s not clear whether this suave person should be British or American, and when he expresses emotion, it looks like he’s doing the impression of someone mugging him. The rest of the cast does fine with what are otherwise, thankless roles. Florence Pugh sufficiently carries the film’s core (and if it’s true from some of the rumours based, literally carrying it through), but Chris Pine easily gives away the best impression of a cult leader, even if he doesn’t have as much screen time as he deserves.
It’s at this point, that I should mention that Pine’s character, according to Wilde, is inspired by Jordan Peterson, whom she describes as the “king of the incels” to a confused Maggie Gyllenhaal (I’m pretty sure Pine heard about him being an influence somewhere and expressed bemusement as well). If you are familiar with the clinical psychologist, who has now slowly transformed into a conservative firebrand, words like “order and chaos” are uttered in the most sinister way. Given that people are led to believe that any criticism of something that features non-white and non-male characters is the work of a bigot, I guess this is a good way to shield the film from at least one type, even after it has been hurled by every other kind that came in good faith.
On a side note, Peterson initially reacted to this choice with some humour, but it wasn’t until his interview with Piers Morgan, that when it’s evoked again, he starts crying, which seems routine whenever he is interviewed. It might have been a coincidence that he cried during that segment due to his withdrawal from his benzo addiction, but it’s clear that he’s not in a good place. And certainly, it ain’t up to Wilde to determine who should be the authority on the ethics of traditional gender roles, when the sex scene she was really passionate about ultimately destroys any sense of agency by the inane twist at the end. But that controversy might have been the lifeline she needed to evade any criticisms facing the film, and if there’s a reason why it keeps the movie away from standing on its own, that’s because it’s a dull effort from someone desperate to stand out. (and for what it’s worth, you shouldn’t have your name attached to the marketing only by your second film).
Stephanie Zacharek pondered that if Olivia Wilde was a male encountering these controversies in exactly the manner that it has been right now, would she have gotten away with it? Personally, the answer is no, because plenty of directors have received scrutiny, then and now, involving their relationships with their actors that go beyond the lines of decency. They have been accused of casual sexism or worse by media outlets hungry to bring any sense of accountability, even when it doesn’t go beneath the surface. And I usually feel bad for the director when the movie isn’t even out yet. Inherently, every choice the director makes is imperfect, but Wilde doesn’t really say anything interesting about gender or online radicalization. That to me is a failing any critic would hold accountable.
Your Bodies Bodies Bodies Is A Wonderland
I am perhaps the only person who finds Knives Out dreadful and part of that is the fact that the writing of it is inspired by terminally online people, only ever becoming more detached from any sense of reality that its fans would might as well fall for. Even if it plays a small part, as its champions would argue, it’s loud enough for me to turn off anything that happens in it. Everyone who is rich, white or has standing in an oligarchy, is an object of contempt, whereas the poor immigrant is the winner, and we all side with her because we’re told that. I don’t object to that, so long as you at least put in the effort to ask why these characters act in that way.
This brings me to Bodies Bodies Bodies, a Gen Z horror comedy that plays quite the contrast to the A24 horror template, usually described as bone-chilling, eschewing jump scares, slow and atmospheric. Directed by Halina Reijin, it focuses on a group of wealth fund kids who hangs out at an abandoned mansion, shortly before the hurricane hits. Bee (Maria Bakalova) and her rich girlfriend Sophie (Amanda Stenberg) come to this mansion where they play a murder-in-the-dark game, and one by one, someone gets killed. Bodies Bodies Bodies often make the joke that these people are vapid and it’s basically the kind of thing that could ever deter the Jason Vorhees type to not pierce their eyes out.
The underlying theme is at least about inequality, and it plays the reverse of Knives Out’s politics. Where the shallow paternalism from the movie complements the viewer, in Bodies Bodies Bodies, it comes with the perceived level of autonomy in these people, and they use it mainly to be the nihilistic insufferablettes that is frequently perceived of Gen Z. Alice (Rachel Sennott) has a podcast and has a much older boyfriend (Lee Pace), but also has rich parents. David (Pete Davidson) is occupied by this very large house, Sophie is a relapsed drug addict (hello Sam Levinson!) and Emma is trying to break out in acting.
But the similarity they hold is of an immigrant woman with a golden heart, who has some trouble navigating her peer’s affluence. And the issue begins with its screenplay, which is littered with every trope of Gen Z that you can think of, but without going into the depths. Instead, it lies on the thrills set on how annoying they are to anyone five feet of them, and that the scariest thing is not some person eventually murdering you while you are in the house, but that these kids use their privileges to come up one another. These details are very thin and if that is enough for anyone to become an interesting character, then be my guest.
Relying on only the flashlights of their smartphones and glow-in-the-dark accessories, the lighting robs Bodies Bodies Bodies of any atmosphere that would make the setting eerier. Compensating that at least is Rachel Sennott, who brings a fine performance and by a small margin, she chews much more scenery. It’s definitely the kind you deliver after your other breakout performance in a movie few people saw. Pete Davidson is by far the most well-cast and there’s a scene with him right at the end that ultimately gave me a much-needed laugh and might as well justify the thesis of the film, even if it seems too late in arriving that moment. Because if it’s a horror comedy, then there are barely any good punchlines throughout.
Mocking privilege and its vapidity are all well and good when you realize that the effort you put in isn’t just there, because it’s easy to do that. And somehow the stakes are lower when everybody argues with one another about who’s hotter. Is that the new wave of feminism?
You Must Watch This: Blonde (2022)
I’m confident in saying this is my favourite film of the year. More to come…
The Noah Berlatsky Award for Terrible Take
