After many comments regarding the film and its cast, Do not worry honey finally hits the big screen this weekend. Despite all the controversy, the new film directed by Olivia Wilde is a remix of ideas, with clear intentions of making a social comment. Although the courage of the filmmaker to talk about certain issues is to be applauded, the biggest problem is that other great films have already done it… and undoubtedly in a better way.
Her second adventure as a director brings together a top-notch cast for a thriller psychological story about oppression in a world designed to keep its inhabitants at bay. Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack Chambers (Harry Styles) are a newly married couple who have just moved to Victoria. This is a small town made up of suburbs where the ideal life is none other than the reality in which they live. The couple usually spend their afternoons having drinks with friends, all of them also young couples who live the ideal of the American dream.
All of Victoria’s men work in the same place. Very early they leave their houses and, formed like sheep, go to their job on the outskirts of town. A secret job that they can’t even talk to their wives about and whose leader is Frank (Chris Pine), who is also the founder of the small community.
Everything goes smoothly until Alice soon realizes that she may be in a fabricated fantasy. The film’s trailers already reveal the many ways in which the protagonist finds fault with the world in which she lives. There are no major surprises once the movie is seen. That should not be a problem, since the surprise factor is almost always minimized in the face of a good construction of the story and a commendable handling of suspense. Issues that the film lacks.
The idea behind Do not worry honey, is to make a film with diverse reflections on various issues. And when I say several, it is because there are actually many. At certain moments it is a critique of the American dream; in others, a discourse opposed to misogyny and the servile role of women; later she finds that sexual touch that seeks to empower women in certain stories; then he talks about socialism; and there is even a critique of the postmodern technological world we are heading towards.
All of the above, very interesting speeches that are soon buried before the most gimmicky and conventional format of the film. Olivia Wilde reserves her efforts not to make all her ideas clear and organized. She but to provide an audiovisual style to a film that ultimately only seeks -apparently- to become an occasional suspense film.
The more questions the film raises, the more difficult it will be for her to answer them later. From some we do not get any response. For example, there are many situations like a scene where the walls close in; another in which Pugh’s character bashes his head against a mirror; or an image of a plane falling behind the mountain. All of them sequences created in a striking way to make it clear that something is not right. And to build suspense, in a rather obvious and uncreative way. Same as in the end they do not find a logical explanation that adds dramatic or emotional charge to the story.
Take for example something recent like WandaVision (with which it bears certain similarities). That mania for driving history through the aesthetics of various stages of sitcomfinally finds an answer and proves not to be an aesthetic whim. Do not worry honey It is precisely a film full of aesthetic whims. He points out many ideas about which he wants to denounce, as if it were a Flees! by Jordan Peele. It places many ellipses of a machined world that never find their counterpart when the truth of the plot is revealed.
Rather than give meaning to her work, Wilde succumbs to the decision to show us how much style she has as a director and not how skilled she is at formulating speeches. In that sense, the film is an impeccable audiovisual extravagance. The sets and decorations designed by Katie Byron are the eye candy perfect for fans of Mad Men. Arianne Phillips’ costumes also sweeten the screen. And the photography of Matthew Libatique (responsible for the images of the black swan, another obvious) makes sure that the set looks as impeccable as it is disturbing.
No one can doubt that Do not worry honey be a film with a very successful audiovisual style. Wilde is concerned with consecrating each scene with some good idea in the staging. He medium and close shots to frame the beauty of his cast. Plans in detail to frame the perfection of the details such as the food, the bodies of its actors (especially in the sex scenes). Abrupt cuts that suggest images that the protagonist has already seen before. The design of many of these images is intended to be disturbing (like a group of dancers in the dark), but the effort to be provocative is too noticeable.
John Powell’s soundtrack suffers from the same evil. His composition seeks to be striking, with the use of gasping voices that create a musical harmony. Something very along the lines of Medulla by Björk, which is perceived as pretentious and, to tell the truth, makes little sense with images.
Much has been said about the various influences used by the director, and the many other works that resemble this story. However, no matter how much it resembles other movies, the problem of Do not worry honey it is that he cannot do the same with respect to those, although he enjoys the same ideas and clings to the same intentions.
Although in general the film falters during much of its efforts, the reality is that for the less demanding viewer it will be a suspenseful experience well achieved. Regardless of the fact that it lacks originality, or that its great plot twist can be guessed from very early in the footage, in the end the film is a convulsive journey, but quite entertaining.
Do not worry honey above all it is sustained – apart from its visual style – by the efforts of its cast. Chris Pine is the villain of the story and puts together a disturbing performance that resembles any alarming cult leader. For his part, Harry Styles is overshadowed by the rest at every moment, but in most of his scenes he gives a glimpse of a star who has the necessary talent, but who was abandoned by the direction.
The best becomes when talking about Florence Pugh. Throughout her career, the actress has managed to carve out that figure of a woman placed in extreme situations, who has the necessary energy to transmit her paranoia to the entire audience in front of the screen. Her performance here is without a doubt the mainstay of the film. Thanks to her commitment to believe in situations that are sometimes implausible and exaggerated (such as the one in which she wraps her head with kitchen plastic), the film finds that much-needed dimension that saves it from falling into oblivion. .
In the end, Olivia Wilde’s second feature film is more form than substance. Which shouldn’t be a problem, since not every movie needs to have a social commentary or backstory to be valid. The problem is that Do not worry honey He insists on making us believe that he seeks to talk to us about necessary things and rarely succeeds. He thinks he is more important than he is and it is in his pretense that he finds his most brutal downfall.
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Luis Angel H Mora My Hogwarts letter never came, so I focused my life on movies. I like to write, Harry Potter, Doctor Who and parties where I wear an astrologer. John Williams and The Killers musicalize the drama of my life.