Should We Worry, Darling?

“Don’t Worry Darling” is a physiological thriller film starring Florence Pugh and Harry Styles. The film is directed by Olivia Wilde and will be released on Sept. 23, 2022. There has been a lot of drama and controversy behind the filming of this movie, so let’s dive right in.   

Filming began in October 2020, and the movie was originally supposed to star Shia LaBeouf instead of Harry Styles. Wilde spoke with Variety Magazine stating that she ended up firing LaBeouf because the employees and actors claimed that they did not feel safe on set. In December of 2020, LeBeouf’s ex-girlfriend, FKA Twigs, filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexual, physical, emotional and mental abuse. Also that month, Variety reported that LeBeouf was actually let go because of “poor behavior.” Off the bat, it was a rocky start for “Don’t Worry Darling.”   

After Styles was cast as Jack Chambers instead of LeBeouf in “Don’t Worry Darling,” dating rumors begin to spread about Styles and Wilde. While filming, Wilde split up with her fiancé, Jason Sudeikis, and started dating Styles. Speculation started that Styles and Wilde had an affair on set. That timing would explain why Sudeikis served Wilde custody papers during CinemaCon, a huge promotional stop for the movie.  

It was rumored that Styles and Wilde would be very upfront about their relationship, which made the other actors uncomfortable and caused tension on set. 

Whispers abounded surrounding the film’s start, and Florence Pugh seemed to avoid promoting the movie on social media. Pugh did not promote the film because she had issues with Wilde. Tension started to rear its head with Wilde’s Vogue Cover. When discussing “Don’t Worry Darling,” Wilde says that she intends for the audience to “realize how rarely they see female hunger, specifically this type of female pleasure.” Right after this article with Vogue, Pugh did her own interview with Harper’s Bazaar, where she calls out Wilde by stating that her claim was sexist and that the sex scenes were not the only reason why she is in the acting industry. In one of the rare moments when Pugh has spoken about the movie, she became frustrated at the idea of her performance being reduced to sex scenes (which Wilde seemed to encourage). To conclude, Pugh and Wilde did not get along, therefore Pugh did not promote the movie and did not attend the press tour.  

“Don’t Worry Darling” officially premiered on Sept. 6 at the Venice Film Festival. During the premiere, Pugh, Styles and Wilde did not interact with one another. There was not a single photo with both the leads together. The lack of interaction between the three made the public realize the tension between the two lead actors and the director. After the film screening, there was a four-minute standing ovation: during this ovation, Florence did not acknowledge Wilde once. And it is now reported that Florence Pugh will not attend the NYC showing of the film. The film got low ratings with an IMDb score of 4/10 and 39 percent on rotten tomatoes. The making of this film was filled with drama, so we will see if it was worth it.