Don’t Worry Darling
Despite the varying reviews Don’t Worry Darling has received, it is clear there is a lot the architectural community can learn from this simulatory film. The film is set in a 1950s idyllic community in Palm Springs, where a group of people have collected to join the Victory Project.
Each morning the men leave for work in a choreographed fashion in their bright convertible cars, while their wives wave them away. During the day, the perfect wives cook, clean, and prepare for their husbands to come home. And then it all is repeated. The story follows Alice (Florence Pugh), and her husband Jack (Harry Styles) in this idealistic community until everything starts to crack at the seams.
Throughout the movie, Pugh’s character, Alice, slowly becomes aware that something isn’t right. The husbands have unknowingly trapped all the wives inside this dream world crafted by Frank (Chris Pine) who heads the Victory Project. Through snippets of film, Jack’s memories are revealed to the viewer proving the Victory Project to be a new reality sculpted out of self-loathing, misogynistic values, and a man’s need to feel relevant.
The story alone leaves the viewer sitting on the edge of their seat grappling with their sense of reality. Aside from the disturbingly perfect film, there are easter eggs alluding to the truth: the Victory Project is only a simulation. With the evolution of virtual reality (VR) becoming such a prevalent topic in today’s world, Don’t Worry Darling acts as a perfect trial run for architects to analyze our future in the virtual world.
Simulation: Variety
Early in the movie, Frank (Chris Pine), the head of the Victory Project, hosts a selective company party at his home. The party is disturbed by Margaret (KiKi Lane) demanding answers and questioning the truth. Frank quickly dismisses her outburst as mental delusion and breaks into a dictator-like, call-and-response speech: “What is the enemy of order?” “Chaos!” “What are we doing?” “Changing the world!”
But what do “chaos” and “changing the world” even mean? Throughout the movie, characters are caught saying powerful statements void of understandable meaning. When Alice begins to question these forced values, Jack says her questions could force them to lose “Our life, Alice / This / We could lose this.” But, what exactly is “this” – their actual lives or their house, money, comfort?
Later in the story, during the townwide party, Frank again declares “Whose world is it?” with the room responding “Ours!”. Frank relies on these declaring statements to rally everyone in the Victory Project, and he, candidly, is quite successful. Yet, there is still pushback – from Margaret, and then Alice – until the whole project crumbles.
Another storyline flaw reveals itself during the private dinner Alice hosts after the annual Victory party. Alice invites a select group over to her house to verbally ambush Frank into revealing the truth. In doing so, she pieces together that a lot of the couples have either lived and vacationed in the same places, had the same meet-cues, and then took the same honeymoon. While this was not enough to persuade those at the dinner to question the Victory Project, it let slip a major flaw in the simulation: lack of variety. None of the wives are asking questions about the past, present, or future, but in designing a realistic virtual world, these storyline pieces are key to creating something real. Therefore, whether or not this was a director’s error or the intentional storyline, how might a new virtual world be built to prevent these holes in the story?
Simulation: Complexity
Another oddity that can be caught in the movie, has to do with the idyllic, midcentury dresses worn by the women. A subtle, yet apparent, caveat to the film is the contrast between Alice’s patterned dresses and the solid-colored dresses of the other wives.
Some have speculated on the dress patterns to align with Alice’s multi-layered, non-compliant character traits. The other women in the movie act as picture-perfect wives – simple and complacent – and, therefore, their dresses reflect this mindset. Even Alice, twice during the movie, can be seen wearing a solid dress when she is supposed to be on her best behavior. Yet, her defiance against simplicity can be assumed in the bright and visually chaotic patterns of her dresses.
The other wives that wear patterned dresses throughout the movie are Violet and Shelley, Frank’s wife. Violet can be seen having moments of confusion and distrust towards this new place. It could be argued her dress pattern represents these feelings of disbelief in the reality of what is in front of her. Shelley, from what is gathered at the end of the movie, has known the truth the whole time. Therefore, the dress patterns are reflective of the more complex characters. Again, however, this design flaw proves a lack of complexity within the simulation’s realm of ability.
Simulation: Creation
The other error in the simulation lies in the architecture of space. This is demonstrated quite beautifully in the camera views throughout the film. Every morning, when Alice makes breakfast, the camera closes in on very focalized views of her actions: buttering the toast or the eggs and bacon cooking. These might simply be mistaken for an artsy take by the director to demonstrate the monotony of Alice’s life until Alice goes to make breakfast and finds the eggshells empty.
One after the other, Alice cracks all dozen eggs to find them empty. Before this morning, Alice would make one piece of toast, two eggs, and three strips of bacon. Why would the simulation need to fill ten other eggs when only two are needed? This follows the very basic virtual reality rule: design what needs to be seen. In most video games, it is apparent when a character wanders too close to the edge of what’s made or strays too far from the course. The designer stops fleshing things out.
This is also why so many mirrors are utilized in different scenes. While the mirrors add a dramatic focalization to the scene, they also allow the simulation to reflect what has already been created and not have design anything beyond that. They act as a neat distortion, tricking the viewer into thinking there is more in the scene than there is.
In the Age of Virtual Reality
“There is beauty in control/There is grace in symmetry/We move as one” This mantra perfectly sums up the intention of the Victory Project, while, also, exposing its flaws of being too perfect.
The movie received a large amount of attention for its confusing tone and nonsensical plot line, however, there is a lot to unravel from the perspective of architectural world builders. Until recently, architects have been designers of the built, and tangible environment. Don’t Worry Darling touches on the current virtual reality crisis architects need to begin grappling with. In pairing with the 2020 COVID pandemic, the world was in fear of a completely virtual/remote reality.
The simulation of Don’t Worry Darling allows architects to question the truth behind a virtual future. Whether this film takes on a dystopian idealogy that Olivia Wilde begs architects not to pursue, or it demonstrates the current flaws that come with virtual reality, it proves a simulation’s need for clarity, complexity, and variety in its creation.
Citations:
Finney, Alice | 10 October 2022 Leave a comment (2022) Don’t worry darling set designed as a ‘debaucherous take on the 1950s’, Dezeen. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2022/10/10/dont-worry-darling-set-design-kate-byron-1950s/ (Accessed: 21 April 2024).
Budds, D. (2022) The best part of ‘don’t worry darling’ is the set design, Curbed. Available at: https://www.curbed.com/2022/09/dont-worry-darling-midcentury-set-design-olivia-wilde-harry-styles-florence-pugh.html (Accessed: 21 April 2024).
Giroux, J. (2022) Don’t worry darling cinematographer Matthew Libatique brings the light [interview], SlashFilm. Available at: https://www.slashfilm.com/1022254/dont-worry-darling-cinematographer-matthew-libatique-brings-the-light-interview/ (Accessed: 21 April 2024).
Soo Hoo, Fawnia(2022) The midcentury ‘don’t worry darling’ costumes thread the needle between the male and female gazes – fashionista. Available at: https://fashionista.com/2022/09/dont-worry-darling-costumes-outfits (Accessed: 21 April 2024).
