People saw blood in the water with the gossipy shit-storm surrounding the production of Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, and many went in expecting/hoping for a disaster for the ages. I admit to some bit of rubbernecking in seeing it opening night, especially since I didn’t like Wilde’s much-acclaimed debut Booksmart at all. But while Don’t Worry Darling isn’t very good, it’s good enough in a few areas that I may have more confidence in Wilde’s abilities as a filmmaker than I did before (she creates some visuals that rattled me even for their obviousness). Maybe she’d do good work with a much better script than this one, which spins its wheels through an endless procession of “what exactly is going on here?” scenes before rushing through the particulars of its twist. But it looks great, thanks to the strong team of technical collaborators and especially Matthew Libatique for his lush, sinister cinematography, and the strength of Florence Pugh’s lead performance makes the interminable build-up to the twist engaging for much longer than it should be. It’s hard to talk about how the movie squanders all this in the home stretch without going into details, so I’ll just say that I went in dreading that it would pull the Village ending and went out thinking that the ending should’ve been more like The Village‘s.

Also out this week, in another “announced a week before it comes out” Shout Factory Blu-Ray, we get Abel Ferrara’s ‘R Xmas, which doesn’t find much holiday spirit in the lives of its well-off New York drug dealer (right before the Giuliani hammer lands on his head) and his wife. This is Ferrara’s Christmas Carol story and its Scrooge does not seem likely to change, especially when the “ghosts” (led by Ice-T) don’t seem much more morally upright than him.

Don’t Open Till Christmas (Vinegar Syndrome)
Don’t Worry Darling 4K (2022) Warner
Emily the Criminal (2022) Vertical
Entre Nous (Cohen)
A Knife in the Head (Cohen)
Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (Paramount)
The Offer (2022) Paramount
‘R Xmas (Shout Factory)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 4K (Vinegar Syndrome)
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Seasons One + Two 4K (Paramount)
Train to Busan 4K (Well Go)