I didn’t want to tackle the controversy surrounding the film in my review to keep the movie analysis mostly separate from that drama. But in talking about spoilers, this seems like a great place to talk about a few of the issues on set and my general problems with the film that need spoiler context. So here go the questions…
***Reminder, there will be spoilers for the film in this article so this is your last chance to avoid them if you want to watch the film without this context.***
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Why and/or How Did They Waste This Premise?
To sum up the core reveal, we find out that the entire Victory project is a digital simulation for men to hold their wives in while they work in the real-world. Inside the simulation, when the men all leave to work at the Victory project, they are actually leaving the simulation to go work their actual jobs that pays Frank (Chris Pine) to run to simulation.
So I would be remiss if I didn’t say how much I love the idea of exploring that dynamic. I had a lot of issues with the execution, but that shouldn’t take away how smart it was to tackle toxic masculinity, address the issues of incels, and confront men who want to go back to regressive gender roles. Even the way men are recruited, through Frank’s podcast and website that are spreading his toxic ideals around the world, was a great nod to the real-world impact we face as people are feed similar problematic ideas.
However, the promise of this idea is what makes the first act more maddening: the characters we interact with don’t really impact that reveal. Harry Styles’ Jack, for example isn’t showing us enough of his character for the audience to dive into his persona. When it’s revealed later that he subjected his wife to this computer program just to make them happy (or how he perceived she would be, he effectively took away her life and agency), it would have been great to see how elements of his Victory persona were similar to his real-life version or spend a bit more of the run time post Pugh’s character becoming aware of what’s going on.
Take the The Truman Show for example: when Truman (Jim Carrey) starts to figure out what’s going on, we get a lot of great scenes of him testing the bounds of his environment and openly questioning the people around him. Then his co-stars get an opportunity to try and keep the façade going or slowly start to crack which confirms his suspicions. When Pugh’s Alice attempts to do so, there’s never really an opportunity for her co-stars to push back or start to crack and by the time they do, the film is basically over.
There’s one character, Wilde’s Bonnie, that makes a lot more sense after the reveal than most of the rest. She’s the most defiant and protective of the neighborhood aside from Frank’s wife Shelly (played by Gemma Chan) and when you realize she came to Victory of her own volition, it makes her gaslighting of Alice make a lot more sense. She’s one of the only woman in this scenario that has something to lose if the project closes down, as she can be with her dead children in the simulation and she’s clinging to them desperately. This still could have been fleshed out better within the interactions with her children (but there’s a great, subtle clue when you realize we never see her husband the entire film foreshadowing the later reveal.)
Why Did Frank Torment Alice?
It’s not that I don’t get it from a screenwriting perspective or even a real world example. There’s plenty of people who actually exist like Frank who love getting their kicks from using their power in manipulative and destructive ways, so this is no exception. However, I think the levels that Frank went with it don’t jive well to me if he knew the technology had limits or that other women in the program could potentially shake off his control. Or maybe this would have landed better if you rework the dinner confrontation scene between Frank and Alice, and let these two have another moment after the reveal comes full circle.
Additionally, Frank’s wife Shelly gets the last laugh when she kills him, and this moment would have been a lot more satisfying if we knew how Frank had been treating her or if the other women in the simulation had started to figure it out. This, again, goes back to the waste of time in the first act; some of these threads could have been better established with how Frank treated his wife so that her actions are more impactful in the final act. As it stands, it just seemed like a way to wrap up the story and move on, not one that seemed earned by the character.
How much would we be talking about this film if it weren’t for the controversy surrounding it?
I would contend that the film would have been a normal box office failure, that maybe makes up for its poor performance with a cult following on streaming, but that’s it. Though to be fair to Darling, Hollywood dustups are nothing new and a bit of bad publicity that gets a few more viewers isn’t the end of the world.
But there are a few issues that unsettle me about the whole production, like…
What if Shia LeBeouf hadn’t said anything? Is that what Olivia Wilde was backing on?
Regardless of the actual story of the firing, it’s clear to me that Olivia Wilde probably wasn’t expecting Shia to say anything given the hot water he’s been in lately. From his erratic behavior to the sexual assault lawsuit from his former partner FKA Twigs, LeBeouf desperately needs to seek counseling and be held accountable for his actions. However that doesn’t mean a director gets to just pile lies onto someone because it’s convenient and hope the court of public opinion won’t look too deep. But the most succinct thing I can say is simply this: LeBeouf being a toxic man and him being right about how he was treated are not mutually exclusive, they can both be true and have to be dealt with as such.
Why did she hire LeBeouf in the first place?
This is why Wilde’s statements about protecting Pugh never made any sense and just made the whole debacle worse. If you had that in mind, and knowing full well that was happening with LeBeouf, he should have never been hired. It’s a completely indefensible decision that only looks worse in hindsight (and could be exasperated even further by the internet when his trial starts next year.)
Should Styles have been hired?
This is a harder question; Hollywood has been thriving on nepotism and various flavors of favoritism since it’s beginning, so to chastise Wilde for something that’s historically happened is sort of a double standard…and going back to the first question, if the debacle never happens would we even care that she hired her significant other?
So I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong here, it’s just being over-scrutinized because of how Wilde handled the situation. And to be more fair, we still don’t really know – and we may never really know – what drama there is between Wilde, Pugh, Styles, and LeBeouf aside from what we perceive. Aside from Wilde’s inerrant comment that kicked off the firestorm, she’s handled herself about as well as you can.
Has Chris Pine’s spirit returned to his body?
I don’t think I can answer that, only the man himself could confirm if he’s fully intact after the whirlwind that was the Venice Film Festival. But wow, we got some great memes from his existential nightmare during the press conferences.
Hey, what do you think? Is there an angle on this that I missed or you want to discuss? Throw a comment on this article or reach out on our Nerd Union discord channel