Don't Worry Darling

About

Don’t Worry Darling is a 2022 film directed by Olivia Wilde and starring Harry Styles, Florence Pugh and Chris Pine. Billed as a sci-fi mystery thriller, it takes place in the 1950s, and sees a married couple played by Styles and Pugh moving into a seemingly ideal community defined by its very traditional gender roles, only to find that all is not what it appears to be.^[1]

The film gained notoriety in the summer of 2022 because of purported on-set drama and tensions involving Styles, Pugh, and Wilde -- which quickly became a subject of memes and speculations from fans and detractors around the internet.

History

The film was announced in August 2019, after a bidding war between studios. In April 2020, Florence Pugh, Shia LaBoeuf, and Chris Pine were cast. In September 2020, Harry Styles replaced Shia LaBoeuf -- principal photography began the next month. The film premiered on September 5th, 2022 at the Venice Film Festival and is set for wider release on September 23rd, 2022.^[2]

Shia LaBoeuf

Shia LaBoeuf, originally cast as the male lead, purportedly left the production over conflicts with Wilde and Pugh. Wilde seemed to imply LaBoeuf had been fired from the production because his “process was not conducive to the ethos that I demand,” saying he was too set on an adversarial relationship with his director. LaBoeuf claimed that he had quit because Wilde did not provide him with enough rehearsal time.^[3]

LaBoeuf then shared text messages he exchanged with Wilde and a video message he’d received from her with Variety magazine, in which the two discuss LaBoeuf’s exit and tensions between him and Florence Pugh. Variety published an article on the dispute on August 26th, 2022. Twitter user @hellopugh, a fan account for the actress, posted the video on Twitter that same day, gaining over 8,600 likes in a little over a week.^[4]

here is the video of olivia telling shia she wants to work it out and that if “miss flo” could “commit” more than it could happen.

please ignore that hashtag on the video I didn’t put it there. pic.twitter.com/vAQPBqPRYE

— sophia (@hellopugh) August 26, 2022

Harry Styles And Olivia Wilde Relationship

Following LaBoeuf’s departure, he was replaced with pop star Harry Styles, in September 2020. In November 2020, Wilde divorced her husband Jason Sudeikis, and in April was memorably served her divorce papers while speaking onstage at an event (see below).^[11]

In January of 2021, a romantic relationship between Styles and Wilde was made public after the two were photographed holding hands at a wedding. Further photos and posts by the two throughout 2021 and 2022 confirmed the growing seriousness of their relationship.^[5]

Florence Pugh

Prior to the film’s premiere in Venice on September 5th, 2022, it was revealed that lead actress Florence Pugh would skip a press conference with the rest of the cast and only go to the red carpet and the screening. The reason given officially was a scheduling conflict with the film Dune 2, which Pugh is currently shooting.^[7] But fans online, abetted by Pugh's lack of a denial, proposed that her absence at the press conference was due to an ongoing feud with Wilde and Styles.

Footage of Pugh strolling about with an Aperol Spritz and looking unbothered amid all the drama went viral online, with many appreciating the lack of concern and joy shown in her strut.

florence pugh avoiding the conference and its drama at the venice film festival and enjoying a spritz. this is what i call iconic behaviour, no one is doing it like her pic.twitter.com/G7iPdXp45N

— fra🍂🫧 | #1 kit connor protector (@goldenheartvhes) September 5, 2022

During the applause given to the film following its screening, sharp-eyed fans observed that Wilde made no eye contact with and did not acknowledge in any way either Wilde or Styles. Others, such as Twitter user @trinawatters in a September 5th, 2022 tweet which received almost 48,000 likes in a day (seen below) pointed out the strange seating arrangement of the cast at the screening.^[6]

Harry Styles Spitting On Chris Pine

Speculation also surrounded the relationship between co-stars Harry Styles and Chris Pine, following two viral moments during the Venice Film Festival where the film premiered. The first was at an event in which Styles and Pine answered questions about their experience filming the movie. During Styles' response, in which he went on about how "my favorite thing about the movie is, it feels like a movie," Pine appeared to zone out and dissociate. Fans online seized on the moment to mock styles and empathize with Pine. In a September 5th, 2022 tweet (seen below) user @romasngerri shared a clip of Pine describing his reaction, and received over 200,000 likes in a day.^[8]

you can almost see the screams catching in his throat pic.twitter.com/AXtiPAd4zx

— anna (@romansgerri) September 5, 2022

Later, during the screening of the film, Styles appeared to spit on Pine as he took his seat. A clip of the incident (seen below) circulated widely online, with many unable to tell exactly what had happened. Harry Styles Spit On Chris Pine then ensued.

#HarryStyles appears to spit on Chris Pine i won't sleep until i know the truth pic.twitter.com/wLXjIHTYgU

— JZMaclin (@Mac70J) September 6, 2022

Memes about the perhaps inappropriate amount of interest shown by observers in the drama surrounding the film circulated widely online. For example, user @fonsythesnowman shared a meme (seen below) about their analysis of the video on September 6th, gaining over 3,000 likes in the space of a few hours.^[9]

Online Presence

The film has an official Twitter account, started in April 2020, which has almost 163,000 followers.^[10]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References