Spoilers for Don't Worry Darling are discussed in this article.
Despite the buzzy anticipation for Olivia Wilde's period piece Don't Worry Darling, other than Florence Pugh's standout turn, the movie has received middling reviews ahead of its release on September 23, 2022. The psychological thriller has been compared to The Stepford Wives due to the artificial town of Victory, California, where citizens engage in the cryptic Victory Project.
Since Don't Worry Darling is set in the 1950s, it's worth directing fans of the film and of period-piece psychological thrillers that subvert the genre and audience expectations to some of the most remarkable examples on record.
Rebecca (1940)
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Although the master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock adapted Daphne Du Maurier's 1938 novel, Rebecca, in 1940, he deliberately set the story in 1935 to give it a slight period feel. The story is remarkably similar to Don't Worry Darling in that both center on a manipulative husband keeping sinister secrets from his wife, with the latter slowly unraveling in her new environment and the ghostly presence of the former's previous spouse, Rebecca.
Moreover, both Rebecca and Don't Worry Darling use their idyllically sumptuous settings as psychological underpinnings for the characters. The lavish Manderley estate in Rebecca becomes a dreadfully claustrophobic place for Mrs. de Winter (Joan Fontaine) to wrestle with her thoughts, while the town of Victory has a Stepford-like veneer of artifice that also influences Alice's mental state. Always ahead of the curve, Hitchcock not only subverts what is expected of his films, but also redefines the classic ghost story by bucking convention to add a romantic element.
Gaslight (1944)
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In what's become a common term in recent years, to "gaslight" someone is to make their sense of reality feel unreal. The term derives from George Cukor's riveting 1944 psychological thriller Gaslight, which also bears a striking similarity to the story of Don't Worry Darling.
Set in 1880s Victorian London, Paula Alquist (Ingrid Bergman) returns from Italy a decade after her opera-singing aunt was murdered. Now living with her charming new husband Gregory (Charles Boyer), the obsessive and controlling spouse begins playing psychological tricks on Paula to make her question her sanity, including a gaslight on the stove that turns on and off at will. In Don't Worry Darling, Jack does nothing but gaslight Alice regarding his job and the town of Victory.
Heavenly Creatures (1994)
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Arguably Peter Jackson's finest film to date, Heavenly Creatures tells the shocking true story of Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet) and Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey), two teenage best friends who brazenly conspired to murder the latter's mother in 1952 New Zealand after their parents believe the girls are becoming too intimate.
Beyond subverting audience expectations by making viewers root for and identify with cold-blooded murderers as the main protagonists, by the end, the aching exploration of Juliet and Pauline's delirious obsession with one another stirs the same sort of jumbled and confounding feelings as the conclusion of Don't Worry Darling.
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
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Giving the conniving subterfuge of Victory and its puppeteers in Don't Worry Darling, one of the most infamous con-artists of periods past, Tom Ripley, instantly comes to mind. Based on the Patricia Highsmith novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley is a stunning psychological thriller beginning in 1958, in which a man of modest means obsessively murders a rich socialite and assumes his identity to climb the ranks of the social ladder.
Hailed for its gorgeous production, exotic locations, terrific ensemble, and central turn by Matt Damon as Ripley, the movie goes much deeper in mining themes of identity, sexuality, autonomy, sovereignty, and more, once again subverting expectations through unpredictable plotting and a sympathetic criminal lead.
Revolutionary Road (2008)
Available On Prime Video
In Don't Worry Darling, Jack (Harry Styles) and Alice (Pugh) live an idyllic 1950s existence marked by conformity. The same goes for Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April (Kate Winslet) in Revolutionary Road, Sam Mendes' superb period romantic film drama that subverts the domestic roles of bread-winning husbands and housewives as it relates to personal happiness.
Despite doing everything society tells them to do in order to achieve the American dream and raise a nuclear family in suburban Connecticut in the mid-1950s, Frank and April are forced to confront their profound sense of despair, alienation, and increasing incompatibility. With both Oscar winners in top form, Revolutionary Road has an emotional heft that is sorely lacking in Don't Worry Darling.
Shutter Island (2010)
Available On Paramount+
Many have likened Don't Worry Darling to Shutter Island, the peerless Martin Scorese channels Hitchcock to tell one of the twistiest and most unpredictably mendacious psychological thrillers on record.
Set in 1954, the story finds U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigating a missing patient at a marooned island mental hospital. As Daniels works through his own troubled past involving his homicidal wife and their two children, Scorsese shockingly pulls the rug out from the audience to reveal a grand role-playing charade that echoes Don't Worry Darling.
The Master (2012)
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With the highest level of craftsmanship across the filmmaking spectrum, Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master is one of the most emotionally vexing psychological dramatic thrillers made in the past decade. Anderson twists the return-home-from-war subgenre to tell the unnervingly challenging story of Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), a wayward sot fresh off a Destroyer in 1950 who meets Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a magnetic cult leader starting his own religion.
Frankly, Don't Worry Darling fails to reach the unshakable emotional depths of The Master, which will make viewers squirm in their seats in hypnotic discomfort as Freddie and Lancaster engage in the auditing process. Subversive in every conceivable fashion, Anderson is far less interested in conforming to expectations than he is crushing them to dust.
The Two Faces Of January (2014)
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Stylishly directed by Drive scribe Hossein Amini from the Patricia Highsmith novel, The Two Faces of January fuses character-driven romance and tension-fueled psychological unrest better than most. Set in 1962 Greece, the film follows conman Chester (Viggo Mortensen), his wife Colette (Kirsten Dunst), and a stranger named Rydal (Oscar Isaac) who get swept into a three-way cat-and-mouse game following the death of a police inspector.
Beyond Highsmith as the common denominator whose expertise continues to make for ideal cinematic adaptations as it relates to themes of hidden identities, it's the intoxicating sensuality, top-tier performances, and elegant locations that are sure to appeal to Don't Worry Darling fans.
Carol (2015)
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For those expressly interested in the romantic element of Don't Worry Darling, Todd Haynes' deftly directed movie Carol is highly recommended. Also based on the Patricia Highsmith novel The Price of Salt, Carol tells the forbidden love affair of the sophisticated luminary Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett) and the younger aspiring photographer Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) in 1952 Manhattan.
Aside from Carol and Therese subverting societal norms in the 1950s to pursue a same-sex romance, the movie's two towering central performances anchor the ground-breaking source material to remind audiences that better roles for women are still needed in Hollywood in the 21st century.
Last Night In Soho (2021)
Available On HBO Max
While taken to more horrific extremes, Edgar Wright's Last Night in Soho is another period-set psychological thriller every fan of Don't Worry Darling should check out. The story follows Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie), an aspiring fashionista who is suddenly whisked to 1960s London where she gets involved with a mysterious singer and a sadistic murderer and must uncover the link between the two.
Like Don't Worry Darling, Last Night In Soho uses an unreliable narrator to subvert audience anticipation, disallowing viewers to firmly grasp Ellie's blurred division between reality and fantastic hallucination. The playful dream sequences alone are impossible to distinguish from reality and a waking nightmare and lead to some of Edgar Wright's scariest movie moments on record.
