We’ve spent the past two years hypothesising about the plot and feel of Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, the Booksmart director’s movie starring Harry Styles and Florence Pugh. Now it’s here, and we find ourselves still stuck in the midst of its controversies. But did you know that there was, once upon a time, a different ending to the erotic thriller?
You can read our full review for the movie here, where we confirmed “Florence is the supreme cowboy at this rodeo”, Harry was not as bad as that one clip on the internet made him seem and, though “there’s not a subtle or revolutionary bone” in the movie’s body, “it’s still rather fun to watch the threads unravel.”
Though the drama swirling around the movie’s Venice Film Festival premiere – namely the rumours Florence was not happy on the set of the movie, and the actress skipping her scheduled press appearance to lounge around with an Aperol Spritz (queen of quiet quitting), and #SpitGate – seems have overshadowed the actual movie itself, it looks like Don’t Worry Darling has reigned supreme. It was number one at the UK and US box office. So far, it’s grossed over $30 milllion in less than a week of release, earning back its production budget. Its US opening weekend gross was also the highest at the box office in five weeks. Maybe Olivia has nothing to worry about after all.
So what else can we expect from the film? And what is this alleged discord between cast and crew members? Did Harry Styles actually spit on Chris Pine? How does Don’t Worry Darling end, and how does that ending differ from the original one that was written? Here’s everything else you need to know.
What’s the film about?
Don’t Worry Darling follows a suburban couple living in 1950s America. Jack is the family breadwinner, working for a company called the Victory Project who, apparently, hold the key to changing life on earth forever. Alice, his obedient wife, stays at home; all women in the town are told to do so. But as she observes what’s happening through the cracks in her curtains — acts of violence committed against women — she realises the Victory Project’s intentions don’t seem to reap positive rewards.
The original script, written by the Van Dyke Brothers, was famously part of the screenwriting Blacklist uncovered in 2019 (a hotbed for new, unproduced projects). But it’s since had a partial rewrite, courtesy of Booksmart’s Katie Silberman — a move to make women an integral part of the production process.
For those wondering what Don’t Worry Darling will be like thematically, Olivia has made some references already. At Warner Bros’ event at Cinemacon on 26 April, she said the film was inspired by the likes of Inception, The Matrix and The Truman Show, calling it “a love letter to movies that push the boundaries of our imagination”.
“I want you to imagine a life where you have everything you could want,” she said at the event, according to Variety. “Not just material, tangible things… like a beautiful house, perfect weather and gorgeous cars. But also the things that really matter, like true love or the perfect partner or real trusted friendships and a purpose that feels meaningful.
“What would it take for you to give up that life, that perfect life. What are you really willing to sacrifice to do what’s right?” Wilde asked. “Are you willing to dismantle the system that’s designed to serve you? That’s the big question at the centre of Don’t Worry Darling.
Is there a Don’t Worry Darling trailer?
Yes, there is! Catch our best look yet at the film below: expect lots of dancing, yelling, moving walls and sex everywhere that’s not in a bed. Cinéma!
Who does Harry play?
In the film, Harry plays Jack, the husband of the lead character. In the original script, he’s supposedly framed as something of a slight chauvinist, and is present in the film from start to finish.
Who else is involved?
Don’t Worry Darling originally did the rounds as a script penned by Carey and Shane Van Dyke. It appeared in the 2019 Black List, a run down of the most intriguing un-produced scripts in Hollywood. When Olivia came on board as director, she had Booksmart writer Katie Silberman adjust the script to give its female characters more agency, while also adding The Victory Project and its charming overlord, played by Chris Pine.
New Line Cinema, who funded the project, brought a majority woman team on board. Olivia Wilde, of course, directed the film in her first project since Booksmart. Catherine Hardwicke, known for directing Thirteen and Twilight, is the film’s executive producer.
On the cast side, Harry is joined, of course, by Florence Pugh, who plays the lead Alice, while Olivia plays Bunny, Alice’s best friend. Chris Pine plays The Victory Project’s cult leader, with his wife Shelley played by Gemma Chan. Others set to make an appearance in the movie include Dita Von Teese, Douglas Smith (Big Little Lies), Nick Kroll (Big Mouth) and Kiki Layne (If Beale Street Could Talk).
Did Harry Styles really write new music for the movie?
Harry Styles not only stars in the movie, he wrote music for it too! In a cover profile for Variety, Olivia revealed that its lead character Alice continually hums a tune. It was referred to in the script as the “trigger song”, but when asking Olivia about the semantics of the scenes, Harry wanted to know exactly what it sounded like. She said she planned to ask composers for some suggestions: “Five minutes later, [Harry] sent me a demo from his piano, and it was what ended up in the film,” she said in the interview. “I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. And that’s really insane that you did that in five minutes.’”
Harry weighed in on his contributions in the Variety interview too, saying that he “wanted something that could be both sweet and creepy, entirely dependent on the context. I remember first playing it on the piano, and it had a sort of homemade nursery rhyme feel to it. Applied to the different moments in the film, I think it takes on a couple of different lives — I hope.” We’ll also get his first tap routine on screen: 35 whole seconds of it.
How does Don’t Worry Darling end, and what was the alternate ending?
Some argue that the original script tied up a lot more of the loose ends that the movie in its current form leaves unaddressed. The incel undertones were more prominent the first time around.
In the movie, after believing that she and the townspeople of Victory are being lied to about something, Alice stages a confrontation at a dinner party that leads to Jack agreeing to escape the town with her. But he’s lying, and instead tells Victory authorities of Alice’s intentions, leading her to be taken to a psychiatric ward where a lobotomy is performed upon her. During this sequence, we see flashbacks that lay out how Jack and Alice got here. Alice is a surgeon, working long hours. Jack stays at home consuming Frank of the Victory Project’s online lectures, which convince him that the pair would be better suited to a virtual life — in which Jack is the breadwinner and Alice is a comfortable housewife.
She wakes up, completely oblivious to her former outburst, until the sound of the jingle Jack hums (the one he wrote for the film) reminds her of her real life outside Victory. She lashes out, smashing a glass over Jack’s head, killing him. Bunny arrives and tells her that, when someone dies here, they die in the real world too. Bunny tells Alice to escape, culminating in a chase to the hills where a portal exists that will take her back into reality. She’s confronted with a vision of Jack trying to convince her to stay, but pushes her hands into the glass. We see a montage of clips — Alice dancing, Bunny with her children — and then the film ends.
The script had a different conclusion, though. In van Dyke’s version, Alice stumbles across a house for sale that doubles up as a portal back to the real world. From there, she awakes in the future (2050, to be exact), finding she’s hooked up to machinery in the apartment she shares with Jack (called Clifford in the original script). Around her are divorce papers, and news clipping alluding to her disappearance, and then memorials held in her honour. It transpires that Jack/Clifford has faked her death. Upon looking at the computer in the apartment, she realises that her husband had enlisted the pair in Alt-Life (the old name for The Victory Project, we imagine) in which the progressive gender roles returned to their archaic form, where women weren’t breadwinners and were subservient to men. All that Jack/Clifford has to do is fake his wife’s death to bring her with him into the alternative reality.
Alice hears her husband come home, and so hooks herself back into the machinery to ensure he hasn’t discovered she’s escaped. When she returns to the faux 1950s, her knowledge — that the world she’s living in is a mirage — leads her to try and escape properly, but Jack/Clifford clock on to this and send her to a psychiatric hospital, where she receives shock therapy.
We’re led to believe this “cures” Alice, but her subservience is performative. One night, she tries to knock out Jack/Clifford with a shovel, tying him up and confronting him as to why he forced them into this existence. He says that, when Alice’s work took over their life, he resented their relationship falling apart, and wanted them to be together again. He guides her to an exit portal, which she runs to, but he escapes shortly after.
Back in 2050, Alice and Jack/Clifford fight. Alice kills him with a kitchen knife. We’re then taken back to 1950, where Bunny finds Jack/Clifford dead and Alice unconscious. When Alice awakes, she’s in a psychiatric hospital where she’s gaslit into thinking the 2050 reality was just a figment of her own imagination; that a world where women have autonomy doesn’t actually exist. When Bunny comes to visit, she lets Alice know that another exit portal exists in the hospital. The film ends with Alice walking towards it, we assume to start her life anew.
What’s all this drama about then?
Reports of a falling out between Florence and Olivia began to surface in August, after the director claimed that she had fired Shia LaBeouf (who was accused of “relentless abuse” by his former partner FKA Twigs, and had been originally cast in Harry’s role) to help the young actress feel “safe” — but this was swiftly disputed by the controversial actor, who said he had left the production of his own accord, and shared an incriminating video message from Olivia with Variety which later leaked online.
In the video, the filmmaker expresses how “heartbroken” she is over LaBeouf’s exit, as well as referring to the situation as a potential “wake up call for Miss Flo.” Speculation continued as Florence seemed to somewhat distance herself from the production on social media, reaching a fever pitch when it emerged that she would not be in attendance for the film’s Venice Film Festival press conference — which was set to be her sole press appearance for the movie overall — because her flight was scheduled to land after it began.
Things took a turn for the absurd in Venice, where both Florence and Olivia’s stylists seemed to weigh in on the feud via Instagram: the former, Rebecca Corbin-Murray, referenced the “Miss Flo” namecheck in her post, while the latter (Karla Welch) apparently took to Stories to write, “There’s always more to the story…” You can say that again, Karla.
“From what I understand, there is friction, but I don’t know why,” a source close to the film told Rolling Stone. “It’s pretty clear [Florence is] choosing not to be a part of the PR,” they continued “It’s clearly not beneficial to Olivia to not have her be a part of the PR. It has to be a Florence decision.”
The pièce de résistance is of course #SpitGate: a viral video sparking a rumour that Harry Styles spat (yes, really) on Chris Pine as he sat down for the film’s Venice premiere. While many of Harry’s fans maintain that the star did in fact spit on his co-star, the video evidence is far from clear-cut — you can’t see anything leave his mouth, and it’s far more likely that the pair were just joking around.
A rep for Chris Pine has now confirmed that Harry’s bodily fluids did not in fact hit the actor during the premiere. “This is a ridiculous story — a complete fabrication and the result of an odd online illusion that is clearly deceiving and allows for foolish speculation,” They said in a statement to Variety. “Just to be clear, Harry Styles did not spit on Chris Pine. There is nothing but respect between these two men and any suggestion otherwise is a blatant attempt to create drama that simply does not exist.” Case closed!
Harry decided to clear the air himself at his Madison Square Garden show last night, taking to the stage in an eye-popping pink and yellow fit. “This is our 10th show at Madison Square Garden,” the star said to the screaming masses before him. “It is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful to be back in New York. I just popped very quickly to Venice to spit on Chris Pine. But fret not, we’re back!”
Wow, okay. So when does it actually come out?
Don’t Worry Darling is out now.