Starring Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Wilde, Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne, Nick Kroll and Chris Pine, it follows a housewife in an idyllic company town who begins to suspect a sinister secret being kept from its residents by the man who runs it.

Following the critical success of Wilde's feature directorial debut Booksmart (2019), a multi-studio bidding war took place for her second film, with New Line Cinema eventually winning.

Pugh joined the cast in April 2020, with Styles added that September, replacing Shia LaBeouf after production had already begun.

Every day, the men leave for work at Victory Headquarters in the surrounding desert, while their housewives are expected to obediently stay.

Stumbling onto Headquarters she touches one of its mirror-like windows, experiencing surreal hallucinations about another life, waking up at home that night.

Jack begs Alice to stay, forcefully grabbing her, prompting her to smash a whiskey glass over his head, killing him in both the simulation and reality.

Various romantic scenes mixed with memories and visions of herself in the real world flash, then the screen cuts to black as Alice gasps for air.

[4][5] The original spec script was written by brothers Carey and Shane Van Dyke; the screenplay appeared on the 2019 Black List.

[17][18] In April 2020, Florence Pugh, Shia LaBeouf and Chris Pine were added to the cast of the film,[19] with Dakota Johnson joining the next month.

[23] That month, Sydney Chandler, Nick Kroll, Douglas Smith, Kate Berlant, Asif Ali, Timothy Simons and Ari'el Stachel joined the cast.

[26] It was temporarily halted for two weeks on November 4 after a crew member tested positive for COVID-19, which resulted in stars Pugh, Styles and Pine being quarantined.

To direct the first shot there felt like this really auspicious beginning to this movie which was this love letter not only to film, but to architecture, to design, to this era.

He provided Variety with leaked texts and a video recording from Wilde addressed to him, in which she says: "I feel like I'm not ready to give up on this yet, and I, too, am heartbroken and I want to figure this out.

"[41] On September 25, 2022, 40 members of the film's crew issued a statement disputing the allegations and dismissing rumors of unprofessional behavior on the set as "completely untrue".

[36] At the CinemaCon 2022 for the stage at Caesars Palace, Wilde confirmed that the idea of the film was inspired by Inception, The Matrix, and The Truman Show.

David Christopherson of MovieWeb called the poster "unsettling," and based on the trailer, Valerie Ettenhofer of /Film said Don't Worry Darling looks like a "full-blown horror movie", noting the mystery surrounding its plot and The Stepford Wives overtones.

The website's critics consensus reads, "Despite an intriguing array of talent on either side of the camera, Don't Worry Darling is a mostly muddled rehash of overly familiar themes.

[64] Reviewing the film after its Venice premiere, Kate Erbland of IndieWire praised the scenography and cast performances, particularly Pugh's, but found fault with the screenplay, summarizing: "Pugh's outstanding performance and the extraordinary below-the-line craftsmanship are all impeccably rendered, but they can't overcome the film's rotten core concept.

Club, Tomris Laffly commended Pugh's performance and also praised Pine's performance and the film's visuals, but called Styles "outmatched", criticized the direction, and found its handling of themes and ideas heavy-handed, writing, "Perhaps the chief deficit of Don't Worry Darling isn't even predictability, but a discernible lack of new ideas of its own.

[67] Vulture.com's Bilge Ebiri called the film "smooth, competent, (mostly) well acted, and merely tedious", writing that the plot "can get boring and repetitive after a little while".

Complimenting the performances of Pugh, Wilde, and Pine, he called Styles "the weak link ... who is not without talent but who fails to give Jack the dimensionality or inner conflict the character clearly needs.

[69][70] Writing for the independent online publication Clapper, Ewan Gleadow praised Pugh's performance but concluded that the film "just isn't up to scratch".

[71] Anthony Lane of The New Yorker called Pine "the best thing in the film" and Styles "utterly and helplessly adrift" while reading lines of dialogue.

[72] Geoffrey Macnab of The Independent wrote, "Styles gives a surprisingly dull and low-wattage performance as Jack", adding that the film "is beautifully shot by cinematographer Matthew Libatique" and complimenting the visuals.

"[78] Pete Hammond of Deadline wrote that the film is "quite entertaining" and "kinda fun", adding that Styles "shows he is the real deal as an actor and has great promise" while also complimenting the performances of Pugh and Pine.

[79] Owen Gleiberman of Variety complimented the production design and wrote that Pugh "holds downs the center of the movie" and that Jack is "played by Styles with a wholesome cunning that marks him as a natural screen actor" and that "with his popping eyes, floppy shock of hair, and saturnine suaveness, he recalls the young Frank Sinatra as an actor.