You might want to worry, darling.

There are those movies that fly under the radar. The sleeper hits that stealthily creep into cinemas. The kind of films that pride themselves on subtlety. Then there’s Don’t Worry Darling.

Unless you’ve been living on the moon for the past few months, you’ll have likely heard of the many juicy drama nuggets that have followed Don’t Worry Darling around. From director Olivia Wilde being served divorce papers on stage while promoting the film, to Harry Styles allegedly gobbing on Chris Pine at the Venice premiere, to all the on-set agro in between, this is a film that has not so much snuck into cinemas but fallen face-first into them.

In 1950s America, Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack (Harry Styles) live in the idealised community of Victory, an experimental company town that houses the men who work on a top-secret project. While the husbands toil away, the wives get to enjoy the beauty and luxury of their seemingly perfect surroundings. However, when cracks in her idyllic life gradually appear, exposing something sinister beneath, Alice can't help but question just what she's doing there.

With all the toxic drama swirling around the film, you’d be forgiven for expecting Don’t Worry Darling to be a disaster. We’ve all seen these kinds of behind-the-scenes shenanigans before, and it almost inevitably produces a car crash, however, the results here are so middling, it’s hard to even recommend the movie for rubbernecking purposes.

After all the turmoil, in the cold light of day, Don’t Worry Darling really is about as middle-of-the-road as it gets. It’s a film that, while certainly having its moments, feels happy to settle for average, but when you have as much going for you as this film does, the tragic waste of potential feels criminal.

With a solid concept, an alluring look, a director fresh off a fantastic debut in Booksmart, and a star in Florence Pugh who is so hot right now it hurts, Don’t Worry Darling (on the surface at least) should be an easy win. Yet the results are far less than the sum of these parts.

To its credit, the film does a solid job of setting up its central mystery, as Olivia Wilde works well to put the plot’s basic elements into place. As we’re introduced to Alice, Jack, and the various other residents of Victory, Wilde manages to lay down the concept’s foundation in a manner that’s intriguing, if not particularly ground-breaking.

The build-up is a slow but steady one that utilises the natural abilities of Florence Pugh and the film’s immaculate appearance to set up what’s to come. With razor sharp production design, well executed editing, and gorgeous cinematography, the foundation really is there for something special, yet somewhere along the line something has gone awry.

Maybe it’s the script’s many reported re-writes, the behind-the-scenes troubles, or perhaps a bit of both, but after a solid start, the whole thing soon begins to unravel. With an overly laboured middle stretch and a lacklustre final act, Don’t Worry Darling loses much of its early promise, coming completely unstuck by its unnecessarily rushed conclusion.

It’s all a rather unsatisfactory way to end a film with so much potential, however, despite its ultimate disappointment, Don’t Worry Darling is worth your consideration for one woman and one woman alone. Proving herself the film’s saviour, Florence Pugh takes it upon herself to elevate the flat material to a level it has no right to go.

Paired opposite the awkwardly out of his depth Harry Styles, Pugh lays down an absolute acting masterclass, adding depth to a shallow story and proving once again that she remains one of the best in the game. With a suitably creepy Chris Pine the only real contender for her title, Pugh is operating on a whole other level, utilising her full emotional range to maximum effect.

While he’s not quite as godawful as you might expect, Styles just cannot compete with the sheer force of Pugh opposite him, wilting under the pressure from the word go. It really is a shame, as a suitable co-star could well have been the ticket to maximising Don’t Worry Darling’s potential, however, as it is, it’s left almost entirely to Pugh to carry the film.

Although Don’t Worry Darling isn’t the car crash one might have anticipated under the circumstances, it’s impossible to call it anything other than mediocre. Elevated by a majestic Florence Pugh performance, Don’t Worry Darling is a solidly directed, mildly diverting, relatively empty thriller that struggles to sustain a premise that comes off like a mid-level Black Mirror episode.