Together on the red carpet, then Styles’ leading ladies went in other Directions
Amid talk of on-set drama in Harry’s new movie...
IT HAS become the most talked about film of the Venice Film Festival – and not for its on-screen action.
Don’t Worry Darling, directed by Olivia Wilde, held its world premiere last night amid a backdrop of behind-the-scenes drama. Leading lady Florence Pugh, starring alongside Miss Wilde’s boyfriend Harry Styles, walked the red carpet in a stunning Valentino bejewelled playsuit after skipping both the press conference and earlier photocall with rumours of a feud with the director in the air.
The 6-year-old rising star from Oxford was reportedly not a fan of the romance which blossomed on set between Styles and Miss Wilde, allegedly finding their habit of spending time together during filming irritating and unprofessional.
After questions about the courtship were well and truly dodged at the press conference, former One Direction singer Styles,
8, and his 38-year-old American lover arrived separately to the premiere.
Both, however, were in Gucci. Styles, making his lead debut after replacing Shia LeBeouf for reasons open to argument by both sides, looked dapper in 1970s-style shirt with oversized collar.
Miss Wilde wore a plunging yellow chiffon gown with diamond necklace.
Miss Pugh, sporting black high heels with feathered straps, was not even expected to stay for dinner with the rest of the cast and crew – heading straight back to Budapest where she is currently filming Dune .
HARRY Styles says that he’s going to focus on music, not acting, in the future. Good for him – and lucky for us. The pop superstar makes his leading-man debut in Don’t Worry Darling, the psychological thriller which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last night. It’s not that the former One Direction singer can’t act – he can.
It’s more that he seems a trifle mechanical alongside his co-star, the excellent Florence Pugh. They play a married couple, Jack and alice Chambers, who live in the suburban utopia of Victory, California, a town of identikit 1950s homes and cars.
The men all work for a mysterious enterprise called the Victory Project, run by a creepy guru called Frank (Chris Pine).
They get home every day at the same time, where their wives have prepared dinner after an afternoon sunning themselves at the country club. In the background, commercials play on monochrome TV sets lauding the community’s conformist values.
Everyone in town is in thrall to Frank, with Jack and alice equally in thrall to their loins. They can’t keep their hands off each other, with Jack especially interested in a certain sex act. One Direction in more ways than one, you might say, although these scenes are not nearly as steamy as some of the film’s rather frenzied publicity suggests.
The added twist, of course, is that the director Olivia Wilde (who also plays alice’s best friend), is said to have fallen for Styles on set.
Whether before or after he flaunted his libido is the $64,000 question. The other question, worth a lot more than $64,000, is whether Don’t Worry Darling will succeed at
the box office. Gradually, as Alice begins to realise that there is a sinister mind-control experiment going on, it becomes clear that this is a story about the subjugation of women: yet another cinematic expression of the feminist crusades exemplified by MeToo and Time’s Up.
There’s nothing wrong with that, even if a sudden narrative lurch into the modern world sends any pretence at subtlety crashing to the ground. No, the bigger problem is that Don’t Worry Darling just isn’t very good. Unhelpfully, it has echoes of much better films, such as the mid-1970s classics The Stepford Wives and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, and The Truman Show (1998).
Even George Clooney’s flawed Suburbicon (2017) explored some of the same themes more compellingly, not to mention the brilliant TV drama Mad Men. It’s a shame, because Pugh gives a fine, feisty performance as a housewife fighting social and psychological manipulation, and the film is great to look at throughout, with a cracking period soundtrack.
But it’s at least three parts style (and
two parts Styles), to one part substance. Wilde and her screenwriter Katie Silberman teamed up to much greater effect to make their sparkling 2019 comedy Booksmart.
Not that there was any telling the hordes of girls screaming for Harry on the Venice Lido yesterday.
Don’t Worry Darling opens in the UK on September 23.