Don't Worry Darling (2022)

Saw Don't Worry Darling, a film that's got twists and turns so it's a little hard to talk about but the premise is basically this: we follow Alice who is the Barbie-doll, 1960s wife of a suit-and-tie-wearing 1960s businessman.  She lives in a plastic-fantastic housing development where they laze around all day drinking martinis and gossiping.  But it's very clear even from the outset that this is not actually the 1960s.  The characters playfully flip each other off and act in anachronistically casual ways, the wives all go ballet practice where the camera prowls and creeps along, watching the graceful women in their identical leotards, clearly signaling that we are in Stepford Wife territory.

I enjoyed this film okay.  It had a good sense of creeping wrong-ness.  I do wish it had been a little more subtle though.  There's a scene early on where the main character is vacuuming the carpet while that Spooky Scary Skeletons cartoon plays on the TV.  That's good: it's subtle.  The picture-perfect 60s atmosphere is troubled by this Halloween cartoon, subtly mocking the ballet lesson.  It's small, but it's still early in the film.  We're building.  Soon after that however there's a scene where the main character is making eggs and realizes to her confusion that the eggs she bought are all just hollow shells with nothing inside.  This is less good in my opinion.  It's still early in the film.  We shouldn't be breaking reality just yet, should we?  Ah well.

Despite not being the slowest of boils, we spend a lot of time with the protagonist, being unsure what's going on, trying to figure it out.  When the explanation comes, it's still a little confusing, but more or less satisfying and there's some interesting inclusion of some internet sub-culture stuff, but the heart of the film is watching this pretty lady be horrified and confused in a sumptuous, midcentury-modern setting.

It's not the best film, but it entertained me okay.  It reminded me of Vivarium (and of course of The Stepford Wives.)  It's very stylish and clever in parts.  It's a little clumsy in parts too, but we can't have everything.