Genre: Thriller/Sci-Fi
Premise: A 1950s housewife who’s getting sick of playing the perfect partner finds out her husband is keeping a secret from her. But it’s not the kind of secret normal 1950s housewives have to deal with.
About: This is the current #1 hot-as-a-forest-fire project in Hollywood. Olivia Wilde, coming off the Rotten Tomatoes hit, Booksmart, was on every studio’s radar. So when she leapt onto this hot spec from the Van Dyke siblings, it became the prettiest girl at the prom.
Writer: The Van Dyke Brothers
Details: 95 pages
Before I get to this review, a review in which I have strong feelings, I must acknowledge that this is exactly the type of script I told everyone they should be writing. A socially conscious thriller with a genre twist that makes it marketable. You do that well and Hollywood will come a-knockin. Which is exactly what happened here. So even though I think this story has issues, I’m happy to say that this is the kind of script you should be writing right now if you want to sell something.
Oh, and HEAVY SPOILERS follow…
The year is 1954. Evelyn Peterson has the perfect life. She’s got a great husband with a great job and she’s got a wonderful house in the perfect neighborhood. The only glitch in her life is that her husband, Clifford, really wants to have kids, whereas she, secretly, does not. Every time they have sex, Evelyn sneaks into the bathroom and uses Lysol on her lady parts, as it was a known way back then to prevent pregnancy.
Not long after we get to know these two, Clifford starts acting like a jerk. For example, when Evelyn accidentally undercooks his eggs, he tells her he doesn’t like runny eggs. Maybe Clifford isn’t the perfect husband after all. This is confirmed later when he finds out she’s been trying to prevent a pregnancy. He yells at her. Grabs her arm strongly. Then, just as quickly as he gets angry, he apologizes. The way she responds, we get the sense that this is a common occurrence.
One day, after Evelyn gets some groceries, she spots Clifford’s car driving away from work. A man standing nearby asks if she’s okay. She looks at him with pure evil in her eyes. What business of it is yours, she thinks. She then follows her husband to a hotel where he slips into a room. Oh no, could her husband be having an affair? Determined to confront him, she charges down to the room, opens the door, and is met with a FLASH OF WHITE.
Evelyn is now in a machine that looks like an MRI. Her legs are emaciated. She tries to get up. But then she sees Clifford coming at her. He mumbles something about her “finding his porthole,” and then sticks a needle in her and she wakes up… back in her home. Wait, was that a dream? Or was it real? Evelyn isn’t sure. But her curiosity is piqued enough that she starts looking deeper into this supposed town she lives in, determined to find the truth behind it.
Okay.
For a long time, there were a lot of scripts written that gave their male characters all the depth, while their female counterparts were portrayed as one-dimensional automatons. Not every script. There were good writers who saw every character as deserving of a complex nuanced life. But most just thought about the guy and gave the girl characters the scraps.
The fact that we’ve started to correct that is a good thing. Scripts are always more interesting when every character has some dimensionality to them. So it’s a little disheartening that there’s this trend building where only the female characters in a script contain depth, while the men must all be one-dimensional. And then there are scripts like this that take it a step further. The men aren’t just one-dimensional, they’re selfish violent predatory creatures who only care about female suffering.
I get that female empowerment is a major talking point in media and social media and that movies are often a reflection of the current newsfeed. But scripts like this and Get Home Safe and the dozen or so screenplays that came out of The Black List last year that painted men as evil… I’m not sure it’s advancing the storytelling medium in a positive way. We just took this major step where meaty female characters are becoming the norm in a screenplay rather than the exception. And yet, meanwhile, we’ve taken this giant step backwards where tons of male characters are written as big fat negative stereotypes. They’ve all become that one-dimensional bully in every 1980s movie.
So it’s a little hard to judge the plot of “Don’t Worry” because everything is colored by that lens. I mean Evelyn is standing next to a random man early in the script and just assumes he’s dangerous for no other reason than he’s a dude.
With that said, it’s quite the cool twist. I was sitting there getting worried I was about to spend the next 90 minutes reading one of those Oscar wannabe flicks set in the 50s that are never good but somehow always get nominated, and then – BAM! – we’re in the Matrix. Now it’s more than just “Husband is Bad Man.” Evelyn’s got to figure out what’s going on, if she’s dreaming. If what she experienced was real, she’s got to find a way out. What happens even if she does find a way out? She has to live in a world 100 years in the future.
There’s something inherently magical about mixing the past with the future. Remember that opening scene in Time Cop where two Union officers stop a band of Confederates in the middle of a storm. Then, out of nowhere, the officers whip out these futuristic uzis and decimate the entire Confederate team? I don’t remember a single thing that happened in Time Cop after that. But I remember that scene like it was yesterday. And it’s because of that unique mix.
So connecting the 1950s and future technology had me hook, line, and sinker.
Unfortunately, the mythology here needs some work. When you come up with these ideas as a screenwriter, it’s really easy to provide a bare-bones framework for the mythology. But the sci-fi movies that become classics are the ones where the writer obsesses over every detail of their world. And I didn’t see that here. For example (major spoilers), Evelyn eventually finds out that she lives in the year 2050 and that her ex-husband has placed her in a 1950s virtual simulation where men imprison women. She finds a video FAQ about how it works and the very first step of the process is: “All you have to do is fake their death.” Okay, so let get me get this straight. It’s 2050. People will know exactly where you are and what you’re doing at every second of every day…. Yet all you have to do to play this fun game is fake the death of the woman you want to put in the simulation. Yeah, I’m not sure that’s going to be as easy as you make it sound.
There were small things as well. Her plan is to poison her husband in order to escape. But if it’s virtual reality, how can he be poisoned?
You don’t want your audience wondering, “Wait a minute but…” in one of these movies. You have to do the hard work and plug up all the holes.
Don’t Worry Darling is a mixed bag for me. It negatively stereotypes men. But it’s a super cool premise. So it’s just barely not for me. But I completely understand why this sold and, to that end, it’s a great example of what aspiring screenwriters should be writing.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: One of my favorite screenwriting moves is the end-of-the-first-act twist. We think we’re watching one movie and – BAM! – we realize we’re watching something completely different. A side tip here – when you use this, create a short first act. What makes these work so well is that the “fake” story driving your first act is kind of boring. Not much is happening. That way, when the SURPRISE TWIST arrives, it takes us from 0-100. But you don’t want to draw that “boring” first act out for 30 pages. We might give up on the script! So you hit us with it around page 20 or 23. Here, we get it on page 20.
