Don't Worry Darling

Don't Worry Darling

I watched Don’t Worry Darling in the theatre and just now again on HBOMAX. It didn’t have great reviews which was surprising to me because the movie literally blew my mind! The twist was so unexpected but once it happened, everything started falling into place. It still left MANY unanswered questions and also had one of those open-to-interpretation endings; niether of which I am a huge fan of, hence the 3.5/5 rating.

The story revolves around a couple, Jack and Alice living in ‘Victory Headquarters’. Its set in the 50s and there is a typical patriarchal vibe; wherein men go to work (on their super classified project), while women cook and clean. Things started being weird within the first 5 mins. There are random unexplained earthquakes, cracking of empty eggshells, Alice wrapping her head in seranwrap, and some other bizarre things. The viewer feels confused about these unexplained phenomenon. The women of Victory also attend a ballet class while the men are away. The ballet instructor says:”there is beauty in control. There is grace in symmetry”, which is later revealed to be pivotal to the plotline.

Things get even more bizarre at a get-together where a woman named Margaret interrupts the speech of the Victory leader Frank and questions-“why are we here?”. Everything that Margaret (or, later Alice) experience is dismissed to be a hallucination or psychosis. There is a scene where Alice witnesses a plane crash and the driver just shrugs and says -“uh are you sure?”. No women are allowed to go the Victory headquarters. Men also give a vague explanation of what they do; they say they are doing “development of progressive materials”.

After much gaslighting of women’s experiences, it is eventually revealed Victory project is just a simulation that Jack voluntarily entered into with his partner Alice. In reality the couple is set in present-day, where in Alice is a surgeon and Jack is an unemployed incel who feels emasculated that his woman earns more than him. He has been religiously listening to Frank’s podcast and has entered into Victory, along with 72 other active users. The women are tied to the bed with their eyes propped open. It is revealed that each man gets to chose a persona and a woman they are bringing into this simulation to enact a scenario where in they are in control and the breadwinner while women take care of the house. Jack choses his nationality to be British and choses Alice to be his wife with whom he has a ‘pre-existing relationship’(insinuating that some women might have been brought into the simulation without having any prior relationship with their man!)

When Alice discovers this, she feels extremely cheated while Jack tries to convice her that Frank “created” this world so they can live the life they deserve. Alice doesn’t buy it and ends up killing Jack in a fight. Her friend Bunny finds out and freaks out! She reveals if a man dies in this simulation , he dies in the real world too, which means Alice is in TROUBLE. Alice tries to ‘escape’ the simulation by running to the headquuarters and it seems she eventually makes it? (its never made clear and is open to interpretation)

There are many unanswered questions such as if Bunny ‘chose’ to be in the simualation where did her husband go when he went to ‘work’? Also the sudden twist where Frank’s wife attacks him with a knife and takes charge by saying-‘its my turn now’, what does she exactly mean and why didn’t she do it earlier?

All in all this was a good thriller with an unexpected twist but also left many unanswered questions which can make the viewer a tad dissapointed.

These were some of my favorite tweets about the movie:

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