Florence Pugh is becoming my go to star as just about any movie she is in seems made better by her presence.

You’d have to be living under a rock to not have heard about this film before its release. Controversy and gossip swirled around director Olivia Wilde’s denouncing of almost lead Shia LaBeouf and his backlash posting of a video confessional she sent him. That she is now in a relationship with LaBeouf’s replacement, Harry Styles, just adds to the melodrama and can’t hurt the box office of Don’t Worry Darling.

And it’s a stylish, almost noir, almost horror adventure. In fact, like Jordan Peele’s Nope, it defies easy classification, and requires the viewer to go along for the ride. Set in an exquisitely styled 50s gated community in some unnamed US desert, young couple Alice (Pugh) and Jack (Styles) are newcomers. Jack has a job with the Victory Corporation led by CEO Frank (Chris Pine), a guru like svengali who has a perfect house and perfect wife, Shelley (Gemma Chan).

It’s presented as a utopian society, with clear gender lines – the men all hop into their cars at the same time every morning and drive off to a mysterious complex built into a mountain and the wives clean their spotless houses, go to dance classes, and prepare a delicious meal to be ready as soon as their husbands get home.

It’s so perfect though, that something doesn’t feel quite right. Neighbour Bunny (played rather deliciously by director Wilde) has a sardonic air and seems more interested in cocktails than her two cookie-cutter children. Peg (Kate Berlant) seems perennially nine months pregnant, but it is Margaret (Kiki Layne) who starts to reveal the cracks in the facade.

It’s best to know little about the plot as it successfully hides what is behind the curtain until the final act. For awhile, I suspected we were watching a metaphor about the gender binary, something like the Stepford wives, where the discomfort that Alice begins to feel – maybe unease, hallucinations, psychosis – is a #metoo reckoning in a toxic, patriarchal world. And it’s not not that, but not at all in the way I thought.

Everything about the mise-en-scène is super saturated and perfectly designed, making it a delight to watch and heightening the sense of unease. The shiny prettiness does make some of the darker themes more shocking – be warned. There are some standout set pieces, particularly around Alice and she and Pugh are what makes the film so compelling. Styles is fine but fades in every scene where Pugh shines.

I walked out not sure if I loved the film. It felt like it had lots of good bits, and the dynamic is satisfyingly dramatic. It’s hard to put my finger on why I felt a little letdown. It reminded me a little of how I felt at the end of Promising Young Woman (2020). Maybe because it felt a bit laboured, a bit artful and without the celebratory strength and humour that Peele manages to achieve. Maybe because it’s clear early on that we are being sold a story.

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