Cinema needs a hero — but is Styles the one?
There’s appreciative screaming, and there’s the sort of unearthly collective shriek that cuts through cinema soundproofing . . .
One of the most talked-about films at Venice this year is nowhere to be seen in the official programme. Instead you’ll find it on attendees’ social-media feeds.
This incendiary 14-second short stars Harry Styles and Chris Pine, and seems to depict the former spitting into the lap of the latter at Monday night’s premiere of Don’t Worry Darling, following a fractious day of press. Seems to — but categorically does not, according to both the Styles and Pine camps, which put out strong denials the next evening. That settled that.
Except, obviously, it didn’t. The clip went viral, increasing the speed of an already runaway PR fiasco. For the past month or so, the launch campaign for Olivia Wilde’s glamorous psychological thriller has been all but drowned out by the public airing of behind-the scenes grievances. Hollywood’s trade press has overwhelmingly laid the blame at the feet of Wilde herself, whose on-set relationship with Styles was apparently the source of some of the mid-production tensions.
Yet they’ve been strangely silent on Styles’ own role in this debacle, even though the stakes are significantly higher for him.
The 28-year-old pop heartthrob finds himself at a precarious point in his career: He clearly wants to move into film stardom, and Hollywood is desperate to have him, along with the oodles of young, ferociously loyal, financially active fans who trail in his wake. After his debut role in Dunkirk, he’s been written into the Marvel franchise (first appearing in Eternals), and has another film, My Policeman, premiering at Toronto at the end of this week.
When the year’s biggest boxoffice draw is 60 (hello, Tom Cruise), and young actors who can draw crowds on their names alone are rare to non-existent, studios have a vested interest in making such a career move work.
On the surface, Styles seems like an ideal candidate. More than 24 hours before the Don’t Worry Darling red-carpet photo call, the faithful had already begun to gather outside the Palazzo del Cinema.
Even Timothee Chalamet — a critical darling, and Oscar and Bafta nominee to boot — hadn’t inspired such levels of dedication three days earlier at the premiere of his cannibal romance Bones and All.
There’s appreciative screaming, and there’s the sort of unearthly collective shriek that cuts through cinema soundproofing, and makes you think during a screening of a tender Japanese melodrama 300m away: “Ah, he’s arrived.”
But film stardom is not like pop stardom. Some of the greatest recording artists of our time have had the screen careers to prove it.
David Bowie’s extraterrestrial presence survived the transition between mediums, but he was hardly box-office gold; for every Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence or The Man Who Fell to Earth, there were multiple oddball character turns.
It’s also far rarer for an actor to be able to take deference for granted: They have to be able to talk credibly about their craft to an audience that stretches beyond their existing fans. And Styles’s performance at the Don’t Worry Darling press conference suggests this may be an area which requires work.
Styles on acting: “For the most part, you’re pretending to play [sic] someone else.” Styles on acting and music: “I think the fun part is you never really know what you’re doing.” Styles on Don’t Worry Darling: “You know, my favourite thing about the movie is, like, it feels like a movie.”
I’ve spoken to a number of film PRs at the festival, and while they were all relieved not to be working on Don’t Worry Darling, most didn’t think this week’s unpleasantness would necessarily be commercially ruinous. There was a general suspicion that it had hurt reviews, some of which struck this critic as unduly harsh. But one leading London-based publicist told me that while the film’s hopes of an Oscar run had probably been damaged, he thought Styles’ followers would probably see the hoopla as an additional enticement. That’s despite Styles’ performance receiving mixed reviews.
It matters whether Don’t Worry Darling succeeds or fails. It’s that vanishingly scarce thing these days: A generously budgeted studio film that isn’t based on a book, or an earlier film, or a plastic toy, or anything else. It’s a little derivative of life’s-too-good-to-be-true thrillers such as The Stepford Wives and The Truman Show, and the ending is a muddle. But it’s lively and stylish, weaves a sharp commentary about the horrors of modern incel culture through its period setting, and Florence Pugh is tremendous in it: A natural movie star in the making.
Yet the young British actress’ fanbase, while strong, is far from boyband-sized. In other words, the future of original Hollywood cinema might lie in the hands of a former X Factor contestant. Don’t Worry Darling? Well, you can forgive us for being a little nervous.