Ever since Booksmart landed to great fanfare in 2019, filmgoers have wondered what’s next for director Olivia Wilde. Now, finally, her follow-up outing is nearly here: Don’t Worry Darling, an erotic psychological thriller about a Stepford Wives-esque community hiding a dark secret lands in September.
Starring a who’s who of young Hollywood (more on that below), the film is bound to be one of the biggest and most talked-about movie releases of the 2022. Here, we’re breaking down everything we know about it—including *that* drama.
What Is Don’t Worry Darling About?
Florence Pugh stars as Alice, a 1950s housewife living in a utopian California community with her husband Jack, played by Harry Styles. Alice and Jack are young, beautiful, and madly in love, but Jack is hiding a dark secret. In this community, the women spend their days at home building idyllic domestic lives for their husbands, while all the men work together at the mysterious Victory Project. Chris Pine plays Frank, the charismatic and sinister leader of the organization, while Kiki Layne plays Margaret, a spooked neighbor warning Alice that this community is not what it seems. When one of the wives goes missing, Alice becomes obsessed with understanding the community’s dark secret, pressuring the men for answers and attempting to rally her fellow wives to her cause.
Introducing the film at CinemaCon, Wilde compared it to Inception, The Matrix, and The Truman Show. She addressed the audience directly, saying, “Imagine a life where you could have anything you ever wanted, not just the tangible things… but also the things that really matter—true love with the perfect partner, real trusted friendships. What would it take for you to give up that perfect life? What are you willing to sacrifice to do what’s right? Are you willing to dismantle the system that is designed to serve you?”
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What Does Don’t Worry Darling Mean For Harry Styles?
Though the singer is just breaking into the big, wide world of acting, Styles is bringing an intensity that is just the right fit for Don’t Worry Darling. In a new cover story for Rolling Stone, Wilde opened up about Harry’s acting, which apparently left jaws on the floor. According to Wilde, while filming Jack’s promotion scene (which, by the way, sounds very Wolf of Wall Street-esque), everyone on set was “in tears.”
“The scene called for him to stand onstage with Frank and chant their creepy slogan, ‘Whose world is it? Ours!’ over and over again,” Wilde said. “Dark as hell. But Harry took it to another level. He was so fully in the moment, he began screaming the lines to the crowd, in this primal roar, that was way more intense than anything we expected from the scene.”
Later, she added that Pine even backed away, giving Harry the floor. “The camera operator followed him as he paced around the stage like a kind of wild animal,” Wilde continued. “We were all gobsmacked at the monitor. I think even Harry was surprised by it. Those are the best moments for an actor—when you’re completely outside your body.”
What’s With All The Drama Surrounding Don’t Worry Darling?
If you spend any time online, any time at all, you’ve likely heard about a supposed beef between Pugh and Wilde. We’ll break it all down for you, but first, a disclaimer: most of what you’re about to read is unsubstantiated hearsay, based on anonymous sources and Internet gossip. Take it with a grain of salt.
TikTok is rife with rumors that the two fell out during filming over Wilde’s alleged lack of professionalism. What’s the evidence, you ask? A blind item on DeuxMoi, the Instagram celebrity gossip account, linked to Wilde: “I have it on very good authority that the director was not as involved in ‘directing’ as it would seem,” an anonymous source wrote. Allegedly, the source of the tension on set was Wilde’s budding romance with Styles. “I can tell you for a fact that Flo seeing Olivia and Harry all over each other on set did not go down well as Olivia was still with Jason [Sudeikis] when she first hooked up with Harry,” an anonymous source told Page Six.
The rumor mill exploded in July when Pugh failed to post about Don’t Worry Darling following a buzzy trailer drop. On the day the second trailer dropped, Pugh posted about another of her upcoming projects, Oppenheimer. Meanwhile, Wilde Instagrammed a behind-the-scenes photo of Pugh, writing, “Watching this woman work was such a fucking thrill!” Pugh didn’t like or reply to Wilde’s post, which some fans interpreted as a conspicuous silence. However, a source told Page Six, “I heard she was already scheduled to post [about Oppenheimer] that day for some specific reason. It had nothing to do with a response to Olivia.”
Various news outlets also ran with an unverified report that claimed Styles made significant amount more than Pugh for his work in the film. In a new cover story for Variety, Wilde emphatically shut down the reports via email. “There has been a lot out there that I largely don’t pay attention to,” Wilde wrote. “But the absurdity of invented clickbait and subsequent reaction regarding a nonexistent pay disparity between our lead and supporting actors really upset me. I’m a woman who has been in this business for over 20 years, and it’s something that I have fought for myself and others, especially being a director. There is absolutely no validity to those claims.”
Wait, Wait, Wait—What’s This About Shia LaBeouf?
Wouldn’t you know it, Shia LaBeaouf used to be in this movie! He was supposed to play Jack instead of Styles, but Wilde reportedly fired him from the film, speaking about it in the same Variety profile. Here’s what she said:
“I say this as someone who is such an admirer of his work. His process was not conducive to the ethos that I demand in my productions. He has a process that, in some ways, seems to require a combative energy, and I don’t personally believe that is conducive to the best performances. I believe that creating a safe, trusting environment is the best way to get people to do their best work. Ultimately, my responsibility is to the production and to the cast to protect them. That was my job.”
After the story hit, apparently, LaBeouf forwarded emails between himself and Wilde to Variety, disputing these claims. The emails he claims to have sent Wilde insist that he quit Don’t Worry Darling on his own terms, writing, “You and I both know the reasons for my exit. I quit your film because your actors and I couldn’t find time to rehearse.” The Variety story includes a truly staggering amount of correspondence between LaBeouf and Wilde, including a description of a video LaBeouf claims Wilde sent him. We’ll update this story if Wilde responds to the latest bit of beef in this saga.
When Will Don’t Worry Darling Hit Theaters?
Don’t Worry Darling lands in theaters on September 23, but rest assured, we’ll likely see plenty more drama before then.
Adrienne Westenfeld is the Books and Fiction Editor at Esquire, where she oversees books coverage, edits fiction, and curates the Esquire Book Club.
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