Repeatedly, the movie leans into Alice’s growing sense of unease as she wades through the monotony of her day-to-day life. Is Don’t Worry Darling based on a true story?ĭon’t Worry Darling is a work of fiction that draws loosely on experiences detailed in The Feminine Mystique. Here’s what you need to know about the history behind Don’t Worry Darling-and its feminist foremothers-before the film’s arrival in theaters on September 23. In an interview with Vogue, Wilde deemed the movie “ The Feminine Mystique on acid.” Articulating the story’s central conflict, she added, “What are you willing to sacrifice in order to do what’s right? If you really think about it, are you willing to blow up the system that serves you?” But she soon comes to question the rigidity and isolation of the town, which confines all women to a regulated schedule as their husbands toil away on the mysterious Victory Project. Alice initially relishes the suburban bliss that the neighborhood of Victory upholds. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night-she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question-‘Is this all?’”ĭon’t Worry Darling, a new film directed by Olivia Wilde, explores the issues raised by The Feminine Mystique through the lens of Alice (Florence Pugh), a 1950s housewife who resides in an idyllic California community with her husband, Jack (Harry Styles). Though Friedan was wholly committed to the responsibilities of the home, she-like many other housewives in mid-20th century suburbia-felt stifled by its lack of intellectual stimulation.Īs Friedan wrote, “Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. Credited with sparking second-wave feminism, the book explored the “ problem that has no name”: in short, a lingering sense of dissatisfaction that pervaded women’s roles as mothers and wives.

In 1963, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique irrevocably altered the cultural landscape.

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