First ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ trailer serves glimpses of Florence Pugh and Harry Styles’s steamy romance: ‘I’m not OK’

Days after getting publicly served with custody papers at CinemaCon, director Olivia Wilde serves up an eerie first trailer for her sophomore feature, Don’t Worry Darling. If her directorial debut, 2019’s Booksmart, was like Superbad meets Dazed and Confused, based on this nearly three-minute teaser, Darling‘s general vibe is The Stepford Wives meets The Truman Show. (Watch the trailer above.)

Based on an original story by siblings Carey and Shane Van Dyke (grandsons of legendary film and TV actor, Dick Van Dyke) and Booksmart scribe, Katie Silberman, Don’t Worry Darling stars Florence Pugh and Wilde’s real-life boyfriend, Harry Styles, as a married couple leading blissful lives in a picture-perfect 1950s company town. Overseen by a dashing CEO (Chris Pine), the Victory Project and its eponymous community appear to embody the “good ol’ days” of post-World War II America.

But Alice (Pugh) eventually starts to see the cracks in her home’s foundation, including strange rumbling noises that feel like earthquakes and strange sightings that resemble mirages. Her gradual awakening puts her on the outs with Jack (Styles) as well as Victory’s other wives — whose ranks include Eternals star Gemma Chan, and Wilde herself. “Please, what’s actually happening,” Alice asks her husband, who would much rather she tow the company line.

Appearing at CinemaCon, Wilde declined to reveal too much about the many twists and turns the story will clearly take. “What would it take for you to give up your life, to do what is right? That is the question of Don’t Worry Darling,” she remarked during her presentation, which was briefly interrupted by an unidentified process server who passed her a manilla envelope containing custody documents from lawyers representing her former partner, Jason Sudeikis. (Wilde and Sudeikis share two children.)

Besides The Truman Show, Wilde also referenced Christopher Nolan’s Inception and Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s The Matrix as major influences on her film. “It’s my love letter to the movies that pushed boundaries of ambition,” she said. “Imagine a life where you could have anything you ever wanted, not just the tangible things … but also the things that really matter — like true love with the perfect partner, real trusted friendships and a purpose that feels meaningful. What would it take for you to give up that life, that perfect life? What are you willing to sacrifice to do what’s right? Are you willing to dismantle the system that is designed to serve you?”

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Those are all questions that Twitter can’t wait to see answered. But they’re even more excited to see more of the steamy love scenes between Pugh and Styles that are teased in the trailer.

Don’t Worry Darling premieres Sept. 23 in theaters