Florence Pugh in “Don’t Worry Darling” (Courtesy Rotten Tomatoes)
October 4, 2022
Ever since the trailer for the psychological thriller “Don’t Worry Darling” dropped four months ago, a gallon of piping hot tea has been poured into a teaspoon-sized cup. From rifts between friends to possible romances, there has been an overflow of gossip and rumors to scald director Olivia Wilde’s reputation.
Fans have been very vocal over the first trailer, as it includes a highly-sexualized scene between Harry Styles and Florence Pugh. Wilde claims that these scenes are important because they highlight female pleasure, but in a Harper’s Bazaar interview Pugh said, “when it’s reduced to your sex scenes, or to watch the most famous man in the world go down on someone, it’s not why we do it. It’s not why I’m in this industry.”
As an Oscar-nominated actress who famously played main character “Dani” in “Midsommar,” Pugh knows her way around a psychological thriller. She has been refusing to discuss the details of the more provocative scenes throughout the film. The scene fans are gushing about only lasts for two seconds out of a three-minute trailer, proving Pugh’s point that she is being reduced to an object made for the male gaze. As the final icing on the cake, Pugh was not in attendance for the press conference at the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
Outside of the film itself, however, there’s another issue of the feud between Shia LaBeouf, Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde. When the movie was announced in 2019, LaBoeuf was cast as the leading male. By August of 2020, he had left the project of his own will, and Wilde claimed that she fired LaBoeuf because of his “combative” energy. This happened around the time that singer-songwriter FKA Twigs accused LaBoeuf of sexual abuse.
To add to the public riff, Variety Magazine received emails to Wilde from LaBeouf where the actor said, “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.” Contradicting Wilde’s claim that she fired her leading man has made movie fans wonder if she was trying to paint herself as a hero by firing an accused sexual abuser.
Not long after LaBeouf left the project, Harry Styles was hired on as the leading male. Only a few months later, paparazzi captured pictures of Styles and Wilde holding hands in public, suggesting the formation of a new relationship and leading fans to wonder about Wilde’s true intentions behind the change in cast.
Wilde and costume designer Arianne Phillips celebrated when Styles joined the project because they respected his appreciation for fashion and style. Wilde claimed in an interview with People that she’s, “really grateful that he is so enthusiastic about [the stylistic] element of the process — some actors just don’t care.”
Despite the initial hype about the “Don’t Worry Darling” release, critics are already panning the film. The 39% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, 6.3/10 on IMDb and 48% rating on Metacritic are not giving viewers much hope that all this drama will have been worth it.
