Don't Worry Darling
New Line Cinema | Release Date: September 23, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
48
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 62 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
40
Negative:
7
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
ConsequenceLiz Shannon MillerSep 20, 2022
While Don’t Worry Darling isn’t perfect, the only baggage it deserves to be saddled with is the baggage of attempting to tell a story with an obvious twist in our twist-numbed culture. For in the end, the real twist is this: even in 2022, true equality between men and women still feels like a fairy tale. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenSep 28, 2022
A stylish, saucy entry in the “stepford wife” subgenre, Don’t Worry Darling treads familiar ground while wearing a killer pair of pumps. The movie won’t surprise you (although I found its “reveal” to be timely and perhaps even prescient), but it sure looks great while not doing it. Read full review
88
ObserverEmily ZemlerSep 23, 2022
In a vacuum, without the headlines, Don’t Worry Darling is a thoroughly compelling watch that reveals a strong filmmaker in Wilde and genuine star in Pugh. Read full review
80
NMEAlex FloodSep 23, 2022
A really quite good film has been overshadowed needlessly. And that’s a real shame. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 5, 2022
Things keep barrelling along thanks to both Pugh and the plot’s punchy critique of certain recent trends in the internet’s more testosterone-raddled dark corners. With a smudgy red-lipsticked grin, Don’t Worry Darling drags them out into the blazing desert light. Read full review
70
We Got This CoveredTricia GilbrideSep 26, 2022
There's a lot to like about Olivia Wilde's sundrenched sophomore directorial effort, particularly Florence Pugh's performance, but the story feels uneven. Read full review
70
The New YorkerRichard BrodySep 26, 2022
The film’s self-undercutting subtleties and its big dramatic reveal serve a greater purpose: its depiction of oppression in an out-of-whack, past-tense America calls to mind the country’s current-day political pathologies. “Don’t Worry Darling” serves that purpose with a cleverness to match its focussed sense of outrage. Read full review
69
CNETRichard TrenholmSep 22, 2022
Perfectly serviceable slice of big screen weirdness. This slick psychological drama is a glossy, stylishly surreal thriller with something to say, featuring an endless array of gorgeous fashions and Florence Pugh on excellent form. What more do you want? Read full review
67
Original-CinJim SlotekSep 21, 2022
If it’s not original ground, Don’t Worry Darling is a visually arresting mash-up of The Stepford Wives and Pleasantville, with its plot about an idyllic artificial ‘50s with pampered suburban housewives religiously dedicated to their husbands and their cocktails, and hints of the decade’s dark side. Read full review
67
ColliderBrian FormoSep 5, 2022
Don’t Worry Darling is best as a surface-level matinée thriller with a few follow-up ahas. But it doesn’t sting like it should in the end. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 5, 2022
The movie, whatever its pile of ideas about love, gender constructs, and modern living, never really transcends Stepford mood-board pastiche. It's all nefarious and gorgeous, Darling, and strictly nonsense in the end. Read full review
65
SlashfilmHoai-Tran BuiSep 5, 2022
Don't Worry Darling wants to be a transhumanist "Truman Show," but ends up playing out more like a mostly okay episode of "Black Mirror." In fact, Don't Worry Darling recycles a bunch of ideas and imagery from other films, which it attempts to imbue with a fresh, new sociopolitical angle. But it can't overcome its rather simplistic story and a disappointing reveal that ultimately doesn't match up to its build-up. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneySep 21, 2022
Darling never quite ignites. The closest it gets to ignition is Pugh’s performance. Styles is perfectly fine, but it’s her movie. Read full review
63
The Associated PressJake CoyleSep 20, 2022
Don’t Worry Darling is ultimately neither worthy of all the off-screen fuss nor quite the on-screen disappointment it’s been made out to be. Read full review
63
USA TodayBrian TruittSep 5, 2022
While there’s a definite “The Stepford Wives” sort of vibe, the narrative themes (which do lean timely) lack subtlety and nuance. Thankfully, Pugh keeps it watchable as a young married woman trying to keep her sanity amidst a ton of gaslighting and constant doo-wop songs. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeSep 26, 2022
The problem is that Wilde leans too heavily on surface and style, as a distraction from the fact that the story itself is riddled with inconsistencies and barely holds together. Read full review
60
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiSep 23, 2022
With Pugh's powerhouse performance elevating the script and an engaging central mystery to keep the plot moving, the film has enough going for it to make it a pleasing watch. Read full review
60
Total FilmJane CrowtherSep 6, 2022
As glossy as any of the surfaces that Alice polishes so diligently each day, it’s a feminist film that asks viewers to evaluate their own social complicity in oppression, while not skimping on really great costumes, gorgeous cars or horny sex scenes. Read full review
60
The IndependentClarisse LoughreySep 5, 2022
It is a messy, convoluted affair with some very contrived plotting. Read full review
60
TimeStephanie ZacharekSep 5, 2022
Don’t Worry Darling makes a better entertainment than it does a serious parable. Read full review
60
TheWrapSteve PondSep 5, 2022
It feels as if there’s a better movie in here somewhere, lost beneath the wild-eyed freneticism and the unsatisfying exposition. Read full review
60
EmpireHelen O'HaraSep 5, 2022
Pugh is superb, while Wilde confidently steps up to a bigger subject and budget to deliver a slick, beautiful film. It doesn’t quite stick the landing, but its flight to that point is fascinating. Read full review
58
The Film StageLuke HicksSep 5, 2022
Ultimately, Don’t Worry Darling is an elaborate game of house with little pay-off, the movie version of a fake tan: it gets the job done, but might sour your interest in the tan itself in the process. Read full review
57
PolygonOli WelshSep 26, 2022
Pugh’s performance is enough of a recommendation to see this shiny, smoothly finished movie-that-feels-like-a-movie. The production design, costuming, and cinematography are ravishing, and wielded with precision. Read full review
56
Paste MagazineKevin Fox, Jr.Sep 23, 2022
For all the hubbub and controversy in the last few weeks leading up to release, it’s an at-best entirely ordinary movie carried almost entirely by Florence Pugh’s performance. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 23, 2022
The gossip will die down, presumably, but the film will remain. And what will stand out about it in the future is what stands out now: Pugh absolutely nailing the role of a woman trapped in a too-good-to-be-true scenario, and slowly coming around to that realization. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 23, 2022
Everything not right with Don’t Worry Darling wasn’t right from the beginning. Even a good director — and Wilde is that, though her hand in developing this material clearly wasn’t without some wrong turns — must deal with script problems if they’re there, in the story, lurking and waiting to mess everything up and send audiences out muttering, wait what? Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Amil NiaziSep 23, 2022
Luckily, Pugh is captivating as Alice, enriching this otherwise rote thriller with as much turmoil and betrayal as she can. Styles does his best to keep pace but it’s hardly a fair ask. Read full review
50
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiSep 23, 2022
Pugh, a sensational actress, keeps our interest as she grows increasingly suspicious and sees disturbing visions in mirrors and on windows. She brings class and gravitas to a movie that would otherwise be kinda trashy. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireSep 23, 2022
As Don’t Worry Darling reaches its climactic and unintentionally hilarious conclusion, Wilde loses her grasp on the material. The pacing is a little erratic throughout, but she rushes to uncover the ultimate mystery with a massive exposition dump that’s both dizzying and perplexing. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithSep 23, 2022
It suffers from a major structural problem, which is that in its endlessly padded middle section it coyly refuses to get to the point until it exhausts the audience’s patience, then sprints through a late explanation that deserves more careful consideration. Read full review
50
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenSep 22, 2022
There’s nothing original in the movie. Indeed, the off-screen controversy that’s been consuming social media lately over the casting of pop superstar Styles and whether Pugh and Wilde are at odds overshadows the movie itself. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisSep 22, 2022
Wilde does some fine work here, despite hammering the same notes early and often . . . But she isn’t a strong enough filmmaker at this point to navigate around the story’s weaknesses, much less transcend them. That’s especially tough on the actors. Read full review
50
CNNBrian LowrySep 22, 2022
Given a chance to step up in class, the actor turned director has assembled a topnotch cast, but in a story that teases the buildup a bit too long and doesn’t pay it off very neatly; indeed, the ending becomes what the movie’s driving force speaks of endeavoring to avoid – namely, chaos. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 21, 2022
Beneath its glossy surface, this is nothing more than a cheap parlor trick, with heavy-handed messaging about female empowerment, and a final act that is neither surprising nor remotely plausible, and not nearly as shocking as it was surely intended to be. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleCary DarlingSep 15, 2022
Sure, “Don’t Worry Darling” — whose very title reeks of paternalism and condescension of the worst order — comes from a woman’s viewpoint, an element that differentiates it from other films or TV series to which it might be compared. But it’s still not enough to keep the movie from slipping into predictability. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreSep 15, 2022
The original sin of Don’t Worry Darling might be how drunk the filmmakers get on the universe they create, dragging and dragging a less and less interesting pastiche of ’50s life — a drunken office party with a stripper, because we’re all so liberal and “modern” — on for so long that the more exciting third act comes as a refreshing jolt. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriSep 5, 2022
The film is smooth, competent, (mostly) well-acted, and merely tedious. Read full review
50
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 5, 2022
Director Olivia Wilde has made an obvious and intermittently entertaining sci-thriller, one that borrows heavily from many better things but uses those pilfered parts effectively enough. For a while, anyway. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 5, 2022
The movie takes you on a ride that gets progressively less scintillating as it goes along. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 5, 2022
The high-concept, low-satisfaction psychological thriller marks an ambitious upgrade in scope for Wilde from the character-driven coming-of-age comedy of Booksmart, and she handles the physical aspects of the project with assurance. It’s just a shame all the effort has gone into a script without much of that 2019 debut’s disarming freshness. Read full review
50
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezSep 5, 2022
Boldness and ambition may get the best of the film, but just like Booksmart, which announced the promising beginning of an intriguing directorial voice, Wilde proves she’s not a one-hit-wonder, at least technically and artistically. Don’t Worry Darling may be a misstep, but Wilde’s still got a flair for cinema that feels worth keeping an eye on. Read full review
42
UproxxVince ManciniSep 29, 2022
The cinematography looks great and the cast (Pugh, Styles, Pine, Nick Kroll, Kate Berlant, Kiki Lane…) are mostly acting their butts off. It’s all very alluring and sexy and intriguing right up until the point when it reveals that it has nothing to say. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubTomris LafflySep 5, 2022
Perhaps the chief deficit of Don’t Worry Darling isn’t even predictability, but a discernible lack of new ideas of its own. Read full review
42
IndieWireKate ErblandSep 5, 2022
Wilde and Silberman seem to bank on the raw power of the film’s third-act reveal to make up for the conspicuously predictable plotting of “Don’t Worry Darling,” but that flimsy switcheroo only detracts from the film’s actual merits. Pugh’s outstanding performance and the extraordinary below-the-line craftsmanship are all impeccably rendered, but they can’t overcome the film’s rotten core concept. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeSep 23, 2022
The costuming and production design are so crisp one can often overlook the vacuum within the packaging. Read full review
40
Little White LiesHannah StrongSep 23, 2022
Pugh has precious little to do as Alice, who is less a character and more a series of strung-together cliches, but her hardest challenge is performing opposite the vacant Harry Styles, whose acting is so stiff and self-conscious it’s impossible to take him seriously, much less believe this is a character capable of the things eventually revealed in the film’s comically predictable twist. Read full review
40
The New YorkerAnthony LaneSep 19, 2022
Don’t Worry Darling is about the development of regressive materials—about forcing women back into boxy lives and striving to convince them that they like it there. The problem is not that this is a cautionary tale but that the caution comes as no surprise. Read full review
40
Time OutPhil de SemlyenSep 6, 2022
Burdened with an underwritten part, the curiously flavourless Styles struggles to match Pugh for intensity as husband and wife fly at each other – one’s ambition at risk from the other’s intuition – and the couple’s chemistry fizzles out. It’s a crucial flaw in a film that needs to sell us at least one thing that feels real in its world of artifice. Read full review
40
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 6, 2022
Wilde has already proven herself as a director with her brilliant debut. Even the hackneyed sci-fi concept behind Katie Silberman’s screenplay wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if it wasn’t for the performances. Read full review
40
BBCSteph GreenSep 6, 2022
It is frequently rudimentary and repetitious – hammering home the same basic point about gender politics while a dulled supporting cast fails to add much colour to the story's margins. Read full review
40
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 5, 2022
Crafted with style, and led by Florence Pugh’s redoubtable performance as a picture-perfect housewife who learns a horrifying truth, this glossy thriller draws unfavourable comparisons to a whole swath of different bygone films, cribbing their unsettling undertones without adding much new to the mixture. Read full review
40
Rolling StoneDavid FearSep 5, 2022
By the time Darling‘s revelations are supposed to double as a call to revolution, you’re left with the sense that you’ve just witnessed the most well-designed, aesthetically pleasing angry tweet ever penned. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangSep 5, 2022
Don’t Worry Darling, for all its sinister undercurrents and feints at subversion, turns out to be a disappointingly heavy thud of a movie. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 5, 2022
Directed by Olivia Wilde, it superciliously pinches ideas from other films without quite understanding how and why they worked in the first place. It spoils its own ending simply by unveiling it, and in so doing shows that serious script work needed to be done on filling in the plot-holes and problems in a fantastically silly twist-reveal. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 23, 2022
Although there are a number of problems with the production, the most glaring is the screenplay. The flaws of the final act are so flagrant that nothing short of a rewrite would have solved them. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineJake ColeSep 16, 2022
Don’t Worry Darling has the swing-for-the-fences ambition that should have at least made it a noble and compelling folly, but its repetitiveness frustratingly undercuts its grandiosity. Read full review
37
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 20, 2022
A movie that’s not a disaster, but not particularly distinguished; a movie that, in the end, will wind up being as forgettable as its own bizarre publicity. Read full review
35
The AtlanticDavid SimsSep 28, 2022
Wilde’s film aims to be a feminist parable about how this idealized vision of the past is actually a curdled vision of coupledom. Abstractly, that’s a robust concept; in execution, the movie’s absurdity overpowers its message. Read full review
35
ABC NewsPeter TraversSep 23, 2022
All the drama seems to have happened off camera for director Olivia Wilde and stars Harry Styles and Florence Pugh. What's on screen is a glossy, repetitive retread of The Stepford Wives with a dash of The Truman Show and no discernible personality of its own. Read full review
30
ScreenCrushMatt SingerSep 23, 2022
A film is not how it’s made; it’s how it plays. And Don’t Worry Darling plays very poorly. It’s the sort of sustained puzzle of a movie that is very hard to pull off especially for over two hours, and here, Wilde was simply not up to the task. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesSep 21, 2022
A swing and a miss is too timid a dismissal. It’s a sumptuously dressed table that ends in a wet fart. Read full review
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