Hello friends! We’re back with another edition of The Weekly: a collection of anecdotes, reviews, and recommendations. This week has been extremely gloomy in New York, so it’s been lots of nights spent in my cozy apartment. Today, I’ll be covering some of my September favorites. Let’s get into it!
Style
1| As the weather gets colder, it’s time to bring some of last year’s fall transitional favorites back. As always, my trusty Old Navy Sky High Straight jeans are some of the best I’ve ever owned and I’ve tried Madwell, Levi’s, and others. I also adore the wide leg jeans from Old Navy (I ordered one size up as they don’t have as much stretch as their straight jean sister.) I also ordered another pair of the H&M+ polka dot tights. They are my favorite for the colder months but rip semi easily. I’m thinking about investing in some sheertex tights but I’m not sure yet!!
2| I worked on a campaign recently with Hill House Home and I have to say I am very much obsessed with the Ellie Nap Dress. As we know, I love a midi dress and the Ellie dress from HHH is the perfect midi situation for a summer to fall transition climate. I’m even tempted to wrap a quarter zip sweater around my shoulders to really sell the preppy vibe. I find that the Nap dress style dresses tend to run a little large. So, if you are between the measurements on their site, I would size down! The fall collection prints are stunning!!
3| September is always a big event month for me. There are so many influencer events, birthday dinners, and other fun things happening in the city. I utilized my Nuuly subscription picks heavily. I am overall a big fan of the rental subscription service and they have a ton of options for my plus size gals especially if you like the Anthropologie vibe. You can get $10 off your first month of the subscription with my link.
Lifestyle
4| Papier recently sent some stationery to celebrate the start of the semester and I am obsessed with the the weekly overview planner sheets. I put my daily to do lists here so that I can physically mark through everything. It helps exquisitely with actually getting things done and staying organized with experiments.
5| In my hair and body products, I’ve been loving the Camille Rose Moisture Milk and the Briogeo Don’t Despair Repair line for my hair. I completely finished the Dove Moisture Boost Pre-Cleanse shower butter. While I’m still not sure what it’s doing for my skin, I love using it. I will probably repurchase it, but I’m also still trying to perfect my body care routine. So, I’ll keep you posted if I end up finding something I like more.
Beauty
6| I was using the manucurist gel set up for a while and I do really love it (especially this cobalt blue nail color) and I would recommend if you’re looking for a new gel system. But, I’m not as fast with it as I would like and was looking for a gel system that worked for when I want to quickly change my nail color for an event or dinner. I picked up the OPI Infinite Shine polish system. It’s a “gel” system without needing the lamp and it dries stupid quick. I really love the Olive For Green shade I picked up recently and it’s perfect for fall.
7| I never really switch up my makeup products; I’ve talked about it many times on the blog at this point. And, I still think the Fit Me Foundation from Maybelline is the best; I recently repurchased for the colder months. One of the only reasons I can tolerate the colder months is that my makeup lasts so much longer and I can justify doing a full face.
Also, for some reason I’ve been really into doing different looks! I am in my beauty guru era apparently and maybe I’ll finally nail the cat eye eyeliner. I’ve worn the Saie slip tint a couple of times now and I’m overall happy with the coverage and how long it lasts throughout the day. I do think it’ll be what I reach for on warmer days, but we shall see! Also, the Merit Flush Balm in mood and the Fenty gloss have been heavy in the rotation.
Entertainment
8| I’m the type of person that listens to the same songs on repeat for weeks and weeks and weeks. So, I’ve been listening to the same albums on repeat since August. I am genuinely obsessed with Renaissance x the queen Beyoncé and absolutely no one should be shocked by that. I’ve also had Florence’s last album, Dance Fever, on repeat for weeks. Choreomania and Dream Girl Evil are my favorite tracks. And, I’ve also recently gotten into BANKS. Her new album is Serpentina is pretty great. I especially love Misunderstood. And of course, the Sam Smith x Kim Petras track Unholy is a certified banger I fear.
9| I am a huge fan of museums and I am urging you to take a solo museum outing sometime soon. As the weather cools down and the season changes, I find I’m super creative and a trip to see beautiful art is exactly what I needed. I went to The Met last week and it was great. I also bought a Met mug and it’s my new favorite thing.
10| I went to see the once-in-a-decade pop culture phenomenon, Don’t Worry Darling. IMHO, the press surrounding the movie was 10,000x more interesting than the movie itself. But for kicks and giggles, here’s a brief synopsis and review of the film.
A Not So Brief Synopsis and Review of Don’t Worry Darling
SPOILERS AHEAD Trigger Warnings: Sexual Assault, Death by Suicide
Welcome to Victory
In my opinion, Don’t Worry Darling is a very poorly attempted reimagination of The Stepford Wives. It begins by spotlighting a small community of couples in the 1950s/1960s in the bright, dessert town of Victory. The film opens early on with a montage of a typical morning for Jack(Harry Styles) and Alice (Florence Pugh), the leads of the film. We are quickly introduced to their neighbors whose houses are all situated within a cul-de-sac. We quickly learn that all of the husbands head off to work at The Victory Project under the leadership of Frank (Chris Pine) to develop progressive materials( 🚩) while the women cook, clean, tend to their children, and shop.
Everything seems to be going swimmingly until Margaret (Kiki Layne), one of the wives, has an outburst at a party that Frank and Shelley(Gemma Chan) are having at their home. Margaret essentially questions The Victory Project and what they are even doing there. Same sis! She goes on to say that everyone needs to leave and that it’s not safe there. We discover in a flash back that Margaret went with her son beyond the town and into the dessert towards The Victory Project headquarters. She hasn’t been right since! And her son has disappeared (The characters are led to believe that he died, but don’t say how 🚩)
Might Want To Start Worryin’ Darling
From here, it’s all downhill (or is it) for Alice as she proceeds to see weird sh*t go down. A plane crashes into a mountain near The Victory Project headquarters. She breaks the one rule they have by going towards it[The Headquarters] to make sure everything is okay. We’re bombarded with a montage of Alice stumbling through the dessert all the way to the main headquarters building. She seems to be drawn to it. She touches the windows of the building to see what’s going on in there. And then she descends into some cinematic chaos i.e. visuals.
Fast forward many hours later and Jack(Styles) is fumbling around in the kitchen trying to make a meal and failing. Silly men! From there, Alice does not know peace. She experiences bizarre phenomenon (her eggs are empty, she saran wraps herself until she can’t breathe, she has weird visions in the middle of ballet class, she watches Margaret slit her own throat and fall to her death)
Ultimately, Alice ends up having a big outburst at dinner with Frank and Shelley that really pisses Jack off. She wants to get the F out of Victory and tries to get Jack to leave with her. But, he only pretends to be on board with that plan. Before you know it, the Victory boogey men are coming from all directions and seemingly out of nowhere ( 🚩) to snatch Alice up!
And here’s the “big” shocker, we are transported to a scene where Alice is undergoing some sort of re-programming. Then, we are taken out of the 1950s/1960s setting we’ve been accustomed to and dropped into the middle of present day. Alice is a surgeon and she is dating/married to a very unpleasant looking Jack! Y’all, they really made Harry so unfortunate looking and didn’t have to try that hard. Yikes! I will now refer to him as Incel Jack for the rest of the synopsis.
Introducing Incel Jack
Now, Incel Jack is a technical engineer who has been listening to Frank’s podcast on Youtube! LOL. He is sad because Alice doesn’t really pay him any mind and is always working. Frank is selling “happiness” to his listeners and so Incel Jack decides to apply for a spot in The Victory Project Initiative.
We come to learn that The Victory Project involves the husband and wife being synced into a 1950s/1960s simulation while wearing some really odd VR eye probe things. We return briefly to the story. Alice has no memory of any of the crazy sh*t that went down before her reprogramming. She’s back to making breakfast and “loving” Incel Jack with no idea that none of this is real. Throughout the movie, she always has this melody stuck in her head and is frequently humming it. Incel Jack comes home one day and starts humming it which I guess triggers her memory again. She’s pissed!
They get into an argument about how he has basically kidnapped her and put her into this brain jail. He attempts to apologize and says he did all of this because she was unhappy and it was his duty to provide for her( 🚩). At the end of the day, he still attempts to suffocate her via a hug (?) and she yeets him with a statue (or something) and he dies. At this point, we’ve also learned that the men have been leaving every day to go back to the “real world” and work their real life jobs and then when they “come home” every night they jump back into the simulation. The program has it built in (I guess?) that if the men are killed in the simulation they actually die in real life. So, RIP Incel Jack!
Be Worried Darling
Alice is now really trying to get the F out of Victory and storms out of her home only to be intercepted by Bunny (Olivia Wilde) who is one of her friends in the movie. She admits to Alice that she is aware this is a simulation and she is there because her kids (who we can presume died or she couldn’t actually have in the real world) are there, but that most of the other women are in similar situations as Alice was. Earlier in the film, they make note that none of the women know how to drive. But, Jack had been teaching Alice how to drive so she hops into the car and jets off to The Victory Project (this is how you exit the simulation).
She gets into a high speed car chase and crashes, sprints up the mountain, and gets to the headquarters with a few spare minutes. While that’s happening, the other men are freaking out and Frank(Pine) gets a call from someone at operations(we assume) to get the bad news that Alice will probably be able to exit the VR. When he gets off the call, Shelley(Chan) stabs him!! And says, “Stupid, stupid man. It’s my turn now.” or something like that. The movie ends with Alice gasping (after presumably waking up) from the simulation.
My Final Thoughts
After all that, my main issues with this film are the abundant plot holes, the lack of character development or insight, and the marketing of the film. The plot holes are glaring and in my opinion detract from the quality of the movie. I think film makers should assume that their audience is going to be slow to the mark. Spell it out for me. Why are the two characters who are starting to realize they are in a VR seeing an airplane crash? Why is Shelley saying it’s her turn to be in charge now? It seemed like The Victory Project was a real entity in the real world and using their applicants to improve their VR software.
But, we don’t actually know that! Kiki Layne posted an Instagram with a caption insinuating that she was cut from a majority of the film and I think if this is true that it was huge mistake on Wilde’s part. She sought to use Margaret and Alice’s friendship to stoke emotion within the audience. But, we have no attachment to Margaret. She just pops out of nowhere 30 minutes in and is raving on about how weird sh*t is happening! I would have liked to see Alice, Margaret, and Bunny in their friendship earlier on in the movie. Then, we would have had a starker contrast and the distress we see in Pugh’s character would be heightened.
Every single actor’s performance was strong aside from Harry Styles and even his performance wasn’t bad. I deeply wanted to see more from Gemma Chan and Chris Pine. Real world footage of Frank and Shelley would have preferable to all the content with Incel Harry. I didn’t need to see him stalking in a beanie and hoodie and being miserable to understand where his character was at. Jack was the least interesting character and they spent too much time on him.
Enough of Incel Harry
We don’t need that much background to understand his thought process. He felt emasculated and decided that making his partner into a comatose, sex doll was the best solution to their (read his) problem. This brings us back to a huge problem I have with the focus on Jack and Alice’s sex life and how it was marketed as a positive depiction of female pleasure. Ma’am! None of those encounters could possibly be consensual when one of the people involved is unwillingly being held in a comatose state with their memory suppressed. It’s disgusting, not empowering.
Lastly, what was the point of this movie? Tangibly, it doesn’t posit much about the subject material. In the final dialogue between the characters, Alice briefly communicates that she didn’t have the ability to choose what her life is anymore. Consent and autonomy are central themes explored within the movie itself and I think they are obviously important.
However, if you’re going to spend so much time on Jack’s motives you need to address them thoroughly. The movie never comments explicitly on why Jack’s actions were so messed up and how society contributes to them. And we are given so much context to draw conclusions from, but why did the writers refuse to address it?
Men, Are You Okay?
The men throughout the entire film are enamored with Frank. They seek approval from Frank. We presumed that they would move their entire families to the middle of the dessert for Frank. They would quite literally dance on command for Frank. In the real world, we see Jack slowly pulled into the darkness because of Frank’s podcast describing how the men of the world could make things good and whole again.
And further, how that responsibility is placed solely on the man’s shoulders. We had time in those final dialogues to dig into how the patriarchy, society’s expectations, and men perpetuate their own downfall. But, we don’t get that; THAT was the new commentary that films like The Stepford Wives didn’t explore. That’s where they could have had something new to say.
So, in conclusion, I thought the movie was fine to watch if you typically approach movies with a “head empty, just vibes” mentality. But, this was supposedly an Oscar bait movie. It simply lacks the substance for me. Although, The Academy continuously nominates movies like The Irishmen so I don’t think we should be looking to them as arbiters of taste. I also don’t think Wilde or Pugh will have a hard time getting the noms.
Alright, if you made it this far, I am shocked! Have thoughts on Don’t Worry Darling? Let me know in the comments below. Enjoying the blog renaissance? Let me know! And as a reward for making it this far, I’ll be back on YouTube with a new vlog next week 🙂
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