The Olivia Wilde-directed Don’t Worry Darling debuted around a swarm of controversies. The cast and crew of the movie were in the news a great deal leading up to the release of the movie for events that occurred on the press tour, and this has detracted from the content of the movie itself getting a lot of attention in the news.
However, among the nightmare sequences and many surprising moments that filled the runtime in Don’t Worry Darling, there were also some particularly profound quotes from the characters that made up the population of Victory. Like some of the movie's more shocking moments, the best Don’t Worry Darling quotes will stick with viewers long after the credits begin to roll.
7 Here, They’re Alive
Olivia Wilde stars in Don’t Worry Darling as well as directing it, and while there might have been controversy over her casting her boyfriend Harry Styles, her performance in the movie as Alice’s confidant Bunny was excellent. Her own contentedness with the way that Victory manipulates people is revealed near the end of the movie when Alice tries to convince her to leave.
She reveals that her children are real to her in Victory, and then she reveals to Alice that her children had previously died in the real world. Alice accepts the oppressive way Victory is run in order to live out her own fantasy. Not one of control, but one of still having her children with her.
6 Like A Good Girl
When Chris Pine’s terrifying, cult leader-style character Frank finally confronts Alice, he says he has been waiting for someone like her, someone to challenge him, like a good girl. This is the most terrifying moment of Frank in the movie, it presents him as not only needing to be in control but believing so totally that he is and that someone like Alice cannot possibly break this reality he has created.
Frank’s character is the epitome of everything that is wrong with the toxic masculinity of the world. He thinks women are to be controlled and that this can be so easily accomplished that he can continue to do it without any consequences.
5 You And Me
This is a repeated quote throughout the movie, Jack constantly tells Alice that the two of them are in this together. The supposed loyalty he feels to her is shown by his persistence in telling her in the third act that when he leaves Victory, his working life is hell.
While this complicates his character, it never changes the fact that he is controlling Alice and is lying about his complete devotion to her first. He finally relents on the promise of it being just the two of them when he allows the Victory workers to come and collect her and bury her memories all over again.
4 Where It’s Safe
Earlier in Don't Worry Darling, Bunny tries to convince Alice to stop going down the road of figuring out what Victory really is by trying to tell her to stay in Victory, where it is safe. As the viewers later find out, Bunny already knew what was going on in Victory and her warning of staying where it is safe was down to her desire to stay there herself.
Victory truly is a safe place for women, where they can stay and remain unharmed. But at the cost of controlling anything about their own lives, or getting to live in the real world. This warning from Bunny was one of the few truths that Alice is told throughout the movie.
3 The Opposite Of Progress
The mysterious company that Jack, Frank, and all the men from Victory supposedly work for is one of the big mysteries in Don’t Worry Darling. While hyping up his workers, Frank asks them what the opposite of progress is, and they respond in unison that it is chaos.
Their hatred of chaos stems from their need for control, which is really what Victory is all about. Anybody that stems from their controlled path is immediately cut out and excommunicated from their idealistic town because they cannot allow anything to affect the total control they exert over every woman living in the town.
2 You Love Me
No quote manages to show just how much Jack needs to be able to control Alice and stay in this world more than the cloying plea that he utters while trying (and failing) to make dinner for her after one of her escapades. Instead of telling her that he loves her, he reminds her with a firm hand that she loves him.
This was a moment completely indicative of his need for control over her, and the desperation to maintain this male-controlled hierarchy in that world is what the movie is all about. Jack is the most desperate-seeming of all the characters to maintain this order, even more than Frank. This is down to his toxic masculinity as well as his (what seems like) true love for Alice.
1 It Was My Life
The final quote that stands out from the movie is the scream Alice lets out against Jack as the final answer to why Jack was wrong for what he did. As he continues to try and protest against her that his way was the right answer to their problems and the right way for her, she insists that he was wrong.
Eventually, Jack tells her that she hated his life and he gave her a better one, but Alice tells him that it was her life and that’s all that mattered. The issue of control that runs through the movie is brought to a final conclusion here, as Alice tells Jack that having control of her own life is more important than anything else. The choice is what matters, free will is necessary to really be living.