The Oscar Project
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas holiday. I’m back with my top five films of the year and we’re kicking off the week with one of the most thought provoking films I saw this year. #5 – Don’t Worry DarlingThere was lots of buzz around this film when it was released in September. The trailers seemed to tell a few different stories about what was going on in the film, and then there was the whole bit about Harry Styles and Chris Pine’s relationship. Unfortunately, that landed the film as a bit of a dud once it did finally his theaters, but I think it got a bit of a bad rap. The story is that of Alice (Florence Pugh) a devoted housewife to her husband Jack (Styles) who works for a top-secret company. The pair live in what appears to be an idyllic community on a cul-de-sac with their closest friends and colleagues. The group is led by their leader Frank (Chris Pine) and his wife Shelley (Gemma Chan) who both strive to maintain a sense of order within the small community nestled in a remote area of the desert. Like Nope, my number six pick last week, Don’t Worry Darling is a beautiful film to look at. There is a wonderful sense of production design in the fifties-era aesthetic of the desert town. Everyone’s home is a bit unique, and each of the men drive a different brightly colored classic car to work when they leave in the morning. The costumes that the ladies don are reflective of the time period and the biggest spectacle at the center of the film comes when Jack is promoted at the company during a lavish dinner party at a music hall. It's hard to write about this film without giving away the secrets behind it, but suffice it to say the idyllic setting depicted at the beginning of the film is one of the many lies of the story. Pugh’s Alice is a woman who starts to see things that don’t make sense in her life and begins to question everything about her very existence. Director Olivia Wilde weaves an intricate web of a story that has viewers guessing at the truth, much like Nope. The story is one of possibilities, but also leaves the viewer trapped in confusion, just like Alice herself. Wilde publicly stated that the film was inspired by a combination of Inception, The Matrix, and The Truman Show all unique films in their own right. I definitely see elements of each of those in the story here and look forward to future repeat viewings, just as I have with those three films. The rest of the posts in this series are all linked below.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI'm just a film buff who wants to watch great movies. Where else to find the best, than the list of those nominated by the Academy each year? Archives
May 2023
Categories
All
|