Resolution of the ending of "Don't Worry Darling" (2023)

Warning: This post contains spoilers forDon't worry dear

come in earlyDo not worry Schatz, which premieres on HBO Max on November 7, our heroine Alice (Florence Pugh) begins to suspect something is wrong. Alice and her handsome husband Jack (Harry Styles) are the perfect leads in the highly anticipated and controversial sequel to Olivia Wilde.Booksmart, his directorial debut🇧🇷 You live in a 1950s Palm Springs-style desert suburb dotted with sleek mid-century modern homes. They're young and deeply in love, one of several couples who lead an enviable life of poolside cocktails.

A cult figure named Frank (Chris Pine) rules the corporate town he has dubbed Victory. Frank's subordinates are prohibited from sharing information about their employment with their spouses or family members. Every day, the couple apparently go to a desert bunker where they work on a top-secret project while their partners stay home to clean, cook, shop and gossip.

It may seem odd to the public that all these perfectly coiffed wives leave home at exactly the same time every morning towards their common cul-de-sac to send their husbands to work. But Alice doesn't realize the film's biggest secret until she breaks a box of eggs and discovers the yolk is missing.

For more information, see: Don't worry, Darling is flawed, but not as bad as its expected critics might expect

He wanders through the desert, sees the bunker where the men work and investigates. Throughout the film, Alice argues with several men, who dismiss her concerns as bouts of female hysteria.

Maybe you're here because you're curious about themdrama about the movie., which at times overshadowed the film itself. You may have noticed that the marketing surrounding the film hints at a big turn. Or maybe you've seen the movie and want to understand what it means.

Here's everything you need to know about the endingDon't worry dear.

What happens in the movie?

Olivia Wilde and Florence Pugh emDon't worry dear

Merrick Morton – Warner Bros.

Alice suspects that something strange is going on with her husband Jack and herStepford womenExistence. Women are forbidden to enter the desert surrounding the city. From time to time, they whisper about what their men really do all day and theorize about the weird sonic booms that disrupt their lazy afternoons. The fact that the city is called "Victoria" suggests that the men work in oneManhattan-Project-nearby atomic bomb or similar.

Things go wrong when one of Alice's friends, Margaret (KiKi Layne), wanders into the desert behind her son and claims to have seen something terrible there. The company tells the city that the son died in the desert, further reinforcing the notion that hiking is dangerous. But Margaret says the company took her son away as punishment for revealing the secret she uncovered. Margaret then cuts her throat in front of Alice and apparently kills herself, although a doctor tells Alice Margaret has recovered. We'll never see Margaret again.

For more information, see: If Olivia Wilde were a man

Around this time, Alice sees a plane crash in the desert and ventures into forbidden territory to find it. Instead, he finds the bunker where all the men work. He approaches the building and as he touches it, he sees a series of amazing images, including dreamy black-and-white sequences of Busby-Berkeley-style dancers. (These women act for men, if this image weren't obvious enough.)

He wakes up in bed again and spends the rest of the film solving the mystery. In a series of increasingly desperate episodes, she confronts her husband, her neighbor and confidante Bunny (Wilde) and Frank. After a confrontation over a sizzling dinner, Frank almost confesses to Alice that he manipulated the people of Victory. But he leaves the party before Alice has finished her questions, leaving Alice arguing with the cowardly Jack. Jack pretends to run away with Alice, but instead arranges for her to be kidnapped by a group of men and bemoans his own bad luck when they drag her away. The bad guys are trying to reprogram it using electroshock therapy.

what is the twist

Florence Pugh emDon't worry dear

Images from Warner Bros.

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It's all a simulation!

Electroshock therapy doesn't go as planned. Lying on the table, Alice accesses her real memories.

It turns out that she is actually a doctor, not a housewife. He lives in a sad apartment in the city and works horrible hours. Jack is also your partner in this universe. He really doesn't like how hard Alice works or that she is the backbone of their relationship. The film tries to increase Jack's fear factor in these scenes by giving Harry Styles very different hair and clothes than Harry Styles.

While listening to a spooky podcast with men's rights activist vibes, Jack learns about the special virtual reality technology Frank invented that allows a man and woman of their choice to connect to a 1920s-style universe. be noticed does not consent to the virtual reality experience. It's not necessarily the man's partner; Could it just be a random woman that the man is presumably...kidnapping? Oh! Jack searches himself and Alice without Alice's consent.

When Alice returns to her "home" - well, her 1950s make-believe - she is rocked by Jack's kiss and more real memories flood back. She confronts Jack and he explains that he made this decision because she was outwardly unhappy. World working long hours in a hospital. Now he just relaxes by the pool. She wishes she never had to leave the simulation, but she does so so she can work in the outside world every day and fund her spooky dream.

Alice screams that shechosenhis supposedly miserable life and that he was enjoying it. That's the tricky part of patriarchy: it often masquerades as domestic bliss.

Later, Alice accidentally kills Jack. Alice's neighbor Bunny appears and reveals that he knows they are living in a simulation. Bunny is there voluntarily because she lost her children in real life and can see her fake children in VR. (An odd revelation considering all the chaos and joy of the children seems to have been squeezed out of Bunny's offspring. They are mere automatons.)

Bunny also mentions that if you kill a man in VR, he dies outside. (Why? Don't think about it.) Alice doesn't seem too sorry that she murdered her controlling lost husband. Bunny, a source of vital information, tells Alice to run to the desert bunker. This is the only way to escape the simulation. Why again? Maybe because Wilde wanted to do a cool vintage car chase. Alice barely makes it. The end.

For more information, see: The 52 Most Anticipated Movies of Fall 2022

Okay, what happened to the plane?

Alice watching a plane crash starts the whole adventure. Was it a bug in the VR experience? It's hard to imagine Frank programming this into the simulation on purpose.

And that moment when Alice was almost crushed while cleaning?

Alice has several hallucinatory experiences, such as the wall in her house nearly crushing her to death and the hallucination of dance class. Is this a mistake or is Frank messing with his head as some kind of punishment? It's never explained.

Can women die in the simulation?

Apparently no. Bunny expressly says yes.masculinedie in virtual reality die in real life. Why should women be the exception? It's unclear.

Margaret cuts her throat at the beginning of the film and disappears. He either killed himself in real life or realized that suicide was the only way to escape the simulation.

How does Alice eat or go to the toilet while using the simulator?

Even if Alice's safety is not threatened in the simulation, how is she supposed to survive outside?

We see Alice hooked up to the simulator machine on a bed. None of your work colleagues or your family has asked you about your disappearance? How do you eat when you're plugged into the machine in bed? And how does he go to the toilet? Does Jack have to take care of this? This seems to remove much of the "romance" (and the quotes do a lot of work there) from Jack's Alice in Dreamland fantasy.

Why did Frank's wife stab Frank?

Gemma Chan aDon't worry dear

Images from Warner Bros.

The status of Frank's wife Shelley (Gemma Chan) throughout the film is a mystery. You know you live in a simulation like Bunny? Or did Frank cheat on her? Presumably the latter: he figured out how to capture his wife in the 1950s suburbs and then hand it off to other insecure men around the world.

At the end of the film, when Alice runs away, Frank is on the phone with his security guard in VR about how to stop Alice. Shelley nonchalantly walks over and stabs Frank with a knife. Why is he doing this now? she didSinglefind out what Frank did? Since Frank remains opaque in his phone call, how did you solve the riddle? Other clues, like Margaret cutting her throat or Alice confronting Frank at a dinner party, didn't they warn you beforehand?

Shelley also makes a comment about being "her turn" now. Is it your turn to simulate? Will he help the women capture the men there? change simulation? Go out? We'll never know because we'll never see her again.

Why did Harry Styles dance at this company party?

In the middle of the film there is a scene where Frank promotes Jack and then Jack performs a long, elaborate dance at a stage party while Alice has a nervous breakdown in the bathroom. I have absolutely no explanation as to why this scene exists in the film. maybe there is oneDance Dance RevolutionMinigame in this virtual reality universe.

Jack's dance inspires the Victory Men to sing about how they are shaping the future in a way reminiscent of Nazi rallies.

What influences are there?Don't worry dear?

still fromThe women of Stepford

Andrew Schwartz—Paramount/Dreamworks/Kobal/Shutterstock

The most obvious touchstone forDon't worry dearesThe women of Stepford🇧🇷 For the uninitiated,Stepford womenis a novel-turned-horror film (released in 1975, followed by a 2004 adaptation starring Nicole Kidman) that satirizes men's reactions to the liberation of women. The focus is on a photographer named Joanna who moves to an eerily perfect city with her husband. All housewives are dull, strangely devoted to housework, and subservient to their husbands.

Joanna investigates her suspicions that something is wrong in town as her husband starts spending more and more time at the men's club. Joanna learns that the town's women used to have thriving careers but have become docile housewives with noticeably larger breasts and no interest in their previous jobs. She eventually learns that men essentially turn women into sex robots. Betrayed by her own husband, she becomes one herself.

There is a moment whenStepford womenBook in which Joanna briefly returns to town. She observes working women on the street and describes them as "hurried, sloppy, angry and alive". This line beautifully illustrates the contrast between Alice's real life as a doctor (alive) and her imagined life as a housewife (in a trance).

wild tooquoted Betty Friedan's powerful book,The female mysticism, which chronicled the discontent of the American housewife and helped launch the second wave of feminism in the United States, as an influence.

The images are heavily inspired by 1960s movies like Sean Connery.Call from JamesMovies but also (more recently) bymad Men🇧🇷 The sultry mid-century marriage between Alice and Jack resembles that ofrevolutionary road🇧🇷 Alice's realization of being gas lit and her eventual escape reflect the ending ofSal🇧🇷 Alice's name could be a clue that Alice fell down the rabbit hole in an upside down worldAlice in Wonderland🇧🇷 The plot of the simulation is reminiscent of films such asDie Truman ShowjPleasantville.

That makesDon't worry dearIt has to do with...Die Matrix?

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. emThe Matrix Resurrections

Murray Close – Warner Bros.

Die Matrixis a touchstone, not only because the entire plot of this film revolves around the hero who distances himself from a nice-looking but unrealistic simulation in favor of a braver life in reality, but also becauseDie Matrix's unintended influence on the language of men's rights activists.

WithinDie Matrixhero Neo (Keanu Reeves) must choose between taking a blue pill to continue his delirium or taking a red pill to wake up to reality. In certain corners of the internet, disaffected men use the term "red pill" to refer to the moment they "realized" that women should rule the world.Red Pill's internet forums have become a place where mostly straight white males express misogynistic views of women.and lament their decadent status in society. (The makers ofDie Matrix, Lana and Lilly Wachowski, both trans women,I have since explained thatDie Matrixis actually an allegory for coming out as trans, much to the dismay of many men's rights activists).

Wilde specifically cited these dark corners of the internet as inspiration for the film's villains. It's easy to imagine Jack identifying as someone who "took the red pill" when he felt emasculated by his wife's earning potential. She sought refuge with a community of men who yearned for a time when men controlled women's bodies and behavior. Ironically, in Wilde's film, these men with red pills intentionally cheat themselves in order to regain power instead of living in reality.

What do Incels, men's rights activists and Jordan Peterson have to do with the plot?

Chris Pine emDon't worry dear

Warner Bros.

A lot of! The main opponents ofDon't worry dearThey are insecure men who want to control women, their careers and their bodies. Jack doesn't feel like he's watching over Alice, so he captures her. After listening to Frank lecture on a podcast about the disempowerment of men in society and the need to prove their manhood, Jack hides in the rain in the middle of the night to find Frank in real life and himself join this winning project.

We don't know the motivations of the other men throwing their partners or other random women into the sim, but we can assume they're all controlling and scary, and their sex reeks of non-consensual. These types of men will be familiar to any woman who spends time on the internet. And there are certain figures who cultivate a following of disaffected men who, after millennia enjoying the world's advantages, blame the rise of women for today's ills.

Wilde told director Maggie Gyllenhaal inInterviewmagazinethat he specifically based the character of Chris Pine on one of those riotous thinkers: Jordan Peterson. Peterson has gained a following among men who blame advances in gender relations for their misery. She has made a career of inflammatory statements about trans rights, gender pronouns and gender equality.

"We built this character on this crazy man, Jordan Peterson, who's a pseudo-intellectual hero of the incel community," said Wilde. Gyllenhaal said he was unfamiliar with the term "incel." (Bless Gyllenhaal for not spending all his time on Twitter.) Wilde explained that he was referring to "involuntary celibates," "essentially disenfranchised, mostly white men who believe they have the right to have sex with women." to have."

Wilde added, "They feel that society has now robbed them, that the idea of ​​feminism is working against nature and that we need to put ourselves back in the right place."

write toEliana Docterman hereineliana.dockterman@time.com.