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Artnodes, No. 33 (January 2024) I ISSN 1695-5951 A UOC scientic e-journal
2024, Sara Calvete-Lorenzo; Andrés Rozados-Lorenzo; Rocío del Pilar Sosa-Fernández
2024, of this edition FUOC
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
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E-JOURNAL ON ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
ARTICLE
Imagined and liquid reality, dystopia and
virtuality in science ction cinema: Don’t
Worry Darling, a case study
Sara Calvete-Lorenzo
University of Santiago de Compostela
Andrés Rozados-Lorenzoo
University of Santiago de Compostela
Rocío del Pilar Sosa-Fernández
University of Santiago de Compostela
Date of submission: May 2023
Accepted in: December 2023
Published in: January 2024
Recommended citation
Calvete-Lorenzo, Sara; Rozados-Lorenzo, Andrés; Sosa-Fernández, Rocío del Pilar. 2024. «Imagined
reality, the liquid, dystopia and virtuality in science ction cinema: Don’t Worry Darling, a case study».
Artnodes, no. 33. UOC. [Accessed: dd/mm/aa]. https://doi.org/10.7238/artnodes.v0i33.415780
The texts published in this journal are – unless otherwise indicated – covered by the Creative Commons
Spain Attribution 4.0 International licence. The full text of the licence can be consulted here:
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Abstract
The history of cinema has never shied away from the representation of the future, and beyond the
abstract nature of the contemporary concept and its temporal uctuations, the sheer profusion of
scenarios and their different links to the very concept of the real have generated a wide range of
futuristic lm references, especially those conceptually linked to the dystopian.
This article presents a case study of Don’t Worry Darling, directed by Olivia Wilde in 2022. It is a
contemporary science ction lm proposal that condenses retro aestheticism and the American Way
of Life with the historical proposals of science ction and its forecasts about humanity’s connection
or disconnection with sensory reality and the birth of virtuality. The analytical methodology, which
links patriarchal dystopia, virtual reality and gender studies, is based on the analysis of differenti-
ating elements that provide signs with which to question the reality of the experiences of the lm’s
main character and the environment that surrounds her.
This research employs a qualitative analysis by means of case analysis with a dual approach: the
audiovisual language and signs of gaps in the lmic reality created. Firstly, the audiovisual language
will be analysed through the use of the decoupage technique and, secondly, the sequences that gen-
erate gaps in the lmic ction and lead the spectator to realize that he or she is facing a simulation
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Imagined and liquid reality, dystopia and virtuality in science ction cinema: Don’t Worry Darling, a case study
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
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Artnodes, No. 33 (January 2024) I ISSN 1695-5951 A UOC scientic e-journal
2024, Sara Calvete-Lorenzo; Andrés Rozados-Lorenzo; Rocío del Pilar Sosa-Fernández
2024, of this edition FUOC
of reality will be organized. The anomalies identied and inferred have been subdivided for analysis into: unrealistic
space/time (synchronizations and repetitions, duplications, spatial incongruities, logical errors and perfections),
mediated reality and the eye metaphor and, nally, diegetic technological analysis.
Keywords
cinema; dystopia; science ction; technology; virtual reality
La realidad imaginada y líquida, la distopía y la virtualidad en el cine de ciencia cción: Don’t
Worry Darling, un estudio de caso
Resumen
La historia del cine nunca se ha alejado de la representación del futuro, y más allá de la naturaleza abstracta del
concepto contemporáneo y sus uctuaciones temporales, la enorme profusión de escenarios y sus diferentes vínculos
con el concepto real han generado una amplia gama de referencias cinematográcas futuristas, especialmente aquellas
conceptualmente vinculadas a la distopía.
Este artículo presenta un estudio de caso de Don’t Worry Darling, dirigida por Olivia Wilde en 2022. Es una propuesta
de película de ciencia cción contemporánea que condensa la estética retro y el estilo de vida estadounidense con las
propuestas históricas de ciencia cción y sus previsiones sobre la conexión o desconexión de la humanidad con la
realidad sensorial y el nacimiento de la virtualidad. La metodología analítica, que vincula la distopía patriarcal, la realidad
virtual y los estudios de género, se basa en el análisis de elementos diferenciadores que proporcionan signos con los
que cuestionar la realidad de las experiencias del personaje principal de la película y el entorno que la rodea.
Esta investigación emplea un análisis cualitativo mediante análisis del caso con un enfoque doble: el lenguaje
audiovisual y los signos de brechas en la realidad cinematográca creada. En primer lugar, el lenguaje audiovisual se
analizará mediante el uso de la técnica de decoupage y, en segundo lugar, se organizarán las secuencias que generan
brechas en la cción cinematográca y harán que el espectador se dé cuenta de que se enfrenta a una simulación de
la realidad. Las anomalías identicadas e inferidas se han subdividido para su análisis en: espacio/tiempo poco realista
(sincronizaciones y repeticiones, duplicaciones, incongruencias espaciales, errores lógicos y perfeccionamientos), real-
idad mediada y metáfora ocular y, por último, análisis tecnológico diegético.
Palabras clave
cine; distopia; ciencia cción; tecnología; realidad virtual
Introduction
The conuence of the perception of the environment and the current
changing context is derived from a different stage of gaze (Debray
1994). The stable, predictable and routine transition is altered by a
reality in constant evolution, in which new technologies prevail (García
2019, 12). In effect, we move in a liquid, exible and inconsistent world
that Bauman (2002) contrasts with solid, routine time endowed with
stability and certainty. This theory describes certain aspects of contem-
porary society, in an era characterized by uidity and instability, both
economically and in the workplace, where traditional social structures
and relationships have become volatile and ephemeral. The dissolution
1. Virtual reality (VR), the use of computer modelling and simulation that enables a person to interact with an artificial three-dimensional (3-D) visual or other sensory (Lowood 2023).
of one’s own certainties forces individuals to continuously adapt to a
new social structure in which all its components evolve at high speed.
In it, a multitude of new means of instant communication are generated
but, paradigmatically, they can also lead to fragmentation and aliena-
tion (Bauman 2002).
This includes technology and, in particular, this study focuses on
virtual reality1 (hereinafter VR) and its representation in contemporary
cinema. Arguably, contemporaneity itself is another volatile and con-
tinuously mutable concept by denition. VR, from a technological point
of view, has three main characteristics (immersion, interactivity and
virtual environment). However, its use within cinematic ction can be
further subdivided into a technological tool for creation, or a dystopian
subcategory within the science ction imaginary, as a metaphor for
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Imagined and liquid reality, dystopia and virtuality in science ction cinema: Don’t Worry Darling, a case study
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Artnodes, No. 33 (January 2024) I ISSN 1695-5951 A UOC scientic e-journal
2024, Sara Calvete-Lorenzo; Andrés Rozados-Lorenzo; Rocío del Pilar Sosa-Fernández
2024, of this edition FUOC
imagined social evolutions, usually of a repressive and authoritarian, or
respectively Huxlerian, elusive nature. If we add a further breakdown of
each technological feature, it could be even greater; as Nilsson et al.
(2016) say, “immersion in VR could be a property of the system, immer-
sion as a response to the development of narrative, diegetic or virtual
characters, and immersion as a response to challenges that demand
the use of intellect or sensorimotor skills.”
While the technological gap is becoming increasingly extreme in this
world and its geographical and socio-economic differences, Needham
(1974) questioned the success of technological development if it is only
applied to certain cultural contexts and specic environments. His idea
is based on the lack of consideration of the recipient’s cultural environ-
ment and its inuence on his or her own use of technology, recognizing
through his research the gap in knowledge to be lled at that time.
Other studies, such as Ruse (2005), focus on technological evolution
and follow Bergson’s approach to the relevance of multidisciplinary
human research in technological development.
The case study of Don’t Worry Darling (Olivia Wilde 2022) confronts
this paradigm of the classical with this liquid reality taken to its max-
imum expression, where traditional institutions are durable and less
meaningful, as well as the use of VR as a social metaphor. Paradoxically,
the omnipresence of images does not perfect our ability to read but
rather reduces it to disenchantment, superciality and the literalness of
reiterative meanings (González 2016, 232).
Nevertheless, the proliferation of images in Western society and
the integration of technology in everyday life, which governs the way
we live, is what Olivia Wilde uses as the basis for the frustration of the
classical, patriarchal, nuclear and heterosexual structure of the family
in this lm. To do so, she uses the interference posed by the recurring
dilemma of whether technology governs the worldview of the human
being, as both its creator and subject at the same time (Couto 2015,
110), in the duality of marriages, knowledge and the use of VR. This is
not a new plot in the history of science ction, as will be discussed in
this text, but what might make Don’t Worry Darling an interesting case to
analyse is the lack of awareness on the part of the viewer that the main
character is in a VR immersion as opposed to the usual cases. That is,
the audience is forced, without any other choice, to follow Alice’s path
to discover that the world she is immersed in is a simulation of which
she is unaware. The different mechanisms to reach that conclusion will
be analysed in this text.
The bond of reciprocity between science ction cinema and so-
ciety is undeniable: the mutual relationship of events as predictions
or consequences of social occurrences (Delgado 2012, 342). On the
other hand, the realism of the events shown on the screen will depend
on different factors, such as judgement, the feeling of veracity and the
credibility of the image (Torregrosa 2010, 202); although this image
may not be real itself, its construction is a product of technologies such
as virtual reality. A clear divergence emerges: the use of VR in the lms
themselves, or the approximation of science ction to the characters
through the recording of real worlds, which purport to be a simulation.
Both options are found in the analysis of Don’t Worry Darling, as the use
of CGI is present, but the bulk of this analysis and its methodology will
be based on the latter.
Signicant technological advances have allowed VR to create nar-
ratives in space and time in cinema, in which differentiating between
physical and created reality (Rojas-Redondo & Barranco 2021, 449) is
complex. Reality, as Berger and Luckmann (2003, 34) state, is not an
automatic conception that is the product of vision, but a construction
created by the eye when seeing. It is a representation that can be in-
uenced by gender, social, cultural and economic factors (Justo Von et
al. 2011, 2), which means that the reading of a work is conditioned by
the norms of its creator, thus governing its understanding of previously
established parameters. This is based on the iconicity of the object and
its degree of similarity to its reference in the real world (Vilasuso 2018,
28). The user’s doubts about the veracity of cinematic experiences arise
from their perception of the degree of similarity and the likelihood that
these experiences are perceived as real and the iconicity of the subjects
or objects. In the current context, ctional cinema acquires the basis
for visualizing a coherent and possible imagery (Quintana 2011, 106)
within a virtual space.
Therefore, it is worth revisiting the main objective of this text,
although, as already mentioned, the links between liquid reality and
its corresponding nostalgia for other historical periods, as well as vir-
tual technological dystopia, intersect in the proposed case study. Don’t
Worry Darling is a paradigmatic and signicant example directly linked
to these intersections of concepts and their ideological translation into
lm narrative, which is what is to be analysed.
1. Links between science ction, dystopia, and
virtual reality
The virtual is often associated with digital technologies and is loosely
dened as the opposite of the real world. VR creates simulations, syn-
thetic images created by a computer, with the illusion of movement
and three-dimensionality that includes, along with the adhesion of real
objects and subjects, an increase in its degree of realism, managing to
produce the effects of the world perceived through the sensory organs.
Its purpose is not representation; it is a representation in itself that
seeks to overcome reality and be perceived as such (Castañares 2011).
Taking it a step further, in this lm case study, the spectator views a
character who is a passive spectator of her own life, which turns a
conservative utopia into a dystopia.
The current technological gap is enormous and continues to in-
crease. Within neoliberal capitalism of unlimited growth, technology
is perceived as an engine of innovation and progress for humanity.
However, it is worth mentioning that in the history of literature and
cinema, its conception is usually dystopian, especially as the origin
of catastrophes, collapse or the subjugation of humanity (Aibar 2022,
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Imagined and liquid reality, dystopia and virtuality in science ction cinema: Don’t Worry Darling, a case study
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Artnodes, No. 33 (January 2024) I ISSN 1695-5951 A UOC scientic e-journal
2024, Sara Calvete-Lorenzo; Andrés Rozados-Lorenzo; Rocío del Pilar Sosa-Fernández
2024, of this edition FUOC
3). As Vizcarra (2012, 79) states, modernity is a distant representation
of futuristic cinema and has been the fundamental basis of science
ction narratives, in which civilization and barbarism coexist. Futur-
istic cinema moves away from the naive concept of photography as
a faithful representation, more closely resembling the fusion of the
elements of which real space is comprised and virtual elements that
produce joint architectural spaces to manipulate the composition of
said elements and to represent its own version of reality (Palomo &
Reséndiz 2022, 73).
Therefore, it is necessary to briey dene dystopia. The birth of this
term was preceded by its opposite: utopia. The concept of utopia arises
from the publication in 1516 of the homonymous work by Tomas Moro
(2016). The concept appears in the historical context of cultural expan-
sion during the Renaissance. In the 19th century, the term uchronia,
which presents an alternative history to real events, was rst coined by
Charles-Bernard Renouvier in 1857 in his book, Uchronie: L’utopie dans
l’Histoire (2015). In this work, he describes what the Roman Empire
would have become with a slight change of the events.
Finally, the concept of dystopia was born, referenced for the rst time
more than three centuries after its antonym, with the rise of the Industrial
Revolution. It is based on the birth of new political trends, in parallel with
the birth of new social classes and socioeconomic structures following
the massive abandonment of rurality for much more oppressive urban
environments. Dystopia, coined by John Stuart Mill, rst appeared in
1868 and is considered one of the main exponents of classical liberalism.
According to Aulestia and Paéz (2017, 440-44), cinematic dystopia has
diverse elements: socio-political, eco-telluric, biological and technologi-
cal. These categories are not watertight, because, in analysis, many of
the constellations of images and plots in science ction are born out of
the intertwining of these elements, with a relative causality between them
that leads humanity to its own destruction.
VR has been widely represented in the science ction genre, in
the form of full-length feature lms or TV series. This analysis builds
on previous studies linking science ction, VR and dystopia, such as
Lencina’s Ronald Reagan’s reality-show is the monster: John Carpen-
ter’s They Live (2019) or Paraisos articiales: la utopía cibernética en
eXistenZ by Merás (2014). In the case of the former, John Carpenter’s
They Live, released in 1988, takes up elements from science ction
with the aim of reworking the conventional form of the monster by
using modied black sunglasses, managing to peel away the layers
of illusion. In a convulsive American social context, under the presi-
dency of Ronald Reagan, this lm proposes a shallow metaphor for
the devastating social consequences that this new leadership will
have on the popular classes through capitalist propaganda, the rise
of unemployment and the phenomenon of homelessness (Lencina
2019, 3). In the second case, Merás proposes a journey through
biotechnology with an openly metaphorical, science-ctional sexual
component and the ethical-psychological debate of the characters in
the face of this post-New Flesh that contrasts the real-biological and
the virtual-technological in game mode.
Other paradigmatic cases on television would be the fundamental
Black Mirror (Jones & Brooker 2011-present) and its different interpre-
tations of the world understood through VR and its consequences, such
as the episode “San Junipero” (season 3, chapter 4) and the conscious
evasion of the sensory real world and its corporal limitations or the
video game-centered episode “Playtest” (season 3, chapter 2), which
cannot avoid being compared to the Cronenbergian example by doubt-
ing whether or not what is experienced belongs to the game. The TV
series The Peripheral (Nolan et al., 2022-present), despite having more
action content and eliminating the caustic interpretation of technology,
has been compared to Black Mirror, and the presence of an immersive
virtual world in which characters interact beyond the expected is once
again present in an admittedly dystopian and socially oppressive future.
2. Don’t Worry Darling: background and case
study of an example of paradigmatic evolution.
“I’ve been waiting for someone like you,
someone to challenge me… like a good girl”
In the lm Don’t Worry Darling (Wilde 2022), the ideal established in
1950s America is simulated, an exploitation of the American Way of
Life, clearly outdated today. The sexual and patriarchal organization of
work in the social project, with assigned gender roles, as well as the
predominant heterosexual construction in the form of a nuclear family
of the couples accepted into it, would constitute a rather simplistic met-
aphor for the current yearnings of the most reactionary part of today’s
society and the old, repeated mantra that all times past were better.
This initial situation is presented to the audience without a mini-
mum of temporal contextualization. As mentioned before, choosing this
lm as an example to expose the links between dystopia and VR is due
to the fact that in it, unlike the vast majority of contemporary cases
observed, virtuality is integrated into the reality that the main character
(Alice) inhabits, hidden from the audience itself, the external observ-
er. This means that the audience must gradually realize that what is
presented to them is constructed and false by means of different lm
mechanisms that have been identied in the footage.
The lm is set in a small town in the desert, the main headquarters
of Project Victory. The sexual division of labour and gender roles are
presented as a matter of course: a group of women who must keep
their identical terraced houses clean, dinner cooked for their husbands’
daily arrival and maintain high sexual capital (Illouz & Kaplan 2022)
within normative corporeality. Their husbands work all day, outside,
for the project. The inspiration from the book The Stepford Wives by
Ira Levin (1972), as well as the lm of the same name (Bryan Forbes
1975), or the terrible black humor remake of 2004 directed by Frank
Oz, is evident. The evolution from android housewives or women with
behaviour-modifying brain chips to VR hostages is a logical evolution in
the contemporary world and its aforementioned liquid reality.
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Imagined and liquid reality, dystopia and virtuality in science ction cinema: Don’t Worry Darling, a case study
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Artnodes, No. 33 (January 2024) I ISSN 1695-5951 A UOC scientic e-journal
2024, Sara Calvete-Lorenzo; Andrés Rozados-Lorenzo; Rocío del Pilar Sosa-Fernández
2024, of this edition FUOC
However, this supposedly classic happiness – a nightmare for many
of today’s women – one might say, is truncated and perverted unraveling
around corners as the protagonist, Alice, one of the perfect wives, pro-
gresses through the plot of this quiet, isolated community. With a retro
aesthetic, the lm bases its action on the helpful and subjugated role of
the group of women: sex, cooking and cleaning, support and strength
(“you are my pillar, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you”, says Fran to
his wife). A homogeneous, white, highly erotic and bourgeois group that
spends its days in the golden cage prepared for them that Olivia Wilde
shows through the mechanisms this article will analyse.
Women are asked to be discreet above all else, to renounce to
wisdom and knowledge, not to know what their husbands are working
on, and not to go out of the city (do the women even know where they
are? Spoiler: no). The link with Genesis, as a shallow metaphor for reac-
tionary Judeo-Christian morality, is present. Alice’s quest for knowledge
jump-starts this story in which all the characters who surround her will
gaslight her to avoid the non-existence of such a project, an alterna-
tive virtual world in which men who feel that the modern world has
robbed them of their strong and nurturing masculinity forcefully take
their wives while keeping them literally tied to the bed with VR devices
hooked to their eyes. In this lm, Project Victory does not exist, but the
dystopian patriarchy that binds and locks women up does.
3. Methodology
The methodology of analysis is a case study of Don’t Worry Darling.
Its construction in this paper resembles other examples of VR analysis
in science ction lmmaking, such as the aforementioned works by
Merás (2014) or Lencina (2019), and of particular interest is Análisis
textual comparado entre dos versiones fílmicas de The Stepford Wives
(1975-2004) el género como dispositivo biopolítico (Escribá 2016). This
research employs a qualitative analysis by means of a dual approach:
the audiovisual language and the signs of gaps created in the lm reality
that gradually demonstrate to the viewers and to the protagonist herself
the glitches in VR. Firstly, the audiovisual language will be analysed
using the decoupage technique, which is a method of lm analysis that
consists of breaking down the sequences of a lm into shots in order
to subsequently analyse them in greater detail. Etymologically, the term
decoupage comes from the French word découper, which means ‘to
split’. Several viewings of the lm have been carried out, resulting in a
complete analysis of all the sequences it is comprised of. On the other
hand, connotative or denotative elements of jumps, imperfections that
are, it could be said, not real in this world and already known to be
virtual, have been identied. By contrasting these selected sequences
to identify such elements with the list, the representative clips of each
case are detected and a complete decoupage of these sequences is
performed (see Appendix I for more information).
From the lm analysis of Don’t Worry Darling, it can be concluded
that the 122-minute lm is composed of a total of 76 sequences divid-
ed into scenarios of ordinary life (Project Victory) and visions (Alice’s
past life). Following an analysis of non-realistic space/time, a series
of phenomena that occur throughout the lm can be identied, and
this patriarchal utopia is deconstructed throughout the story with the
incongruities of physical laws such as gravity or with the dimension-
ality and distance of objects, typical of VR, so as to provide signals for
questioning the veracity of experiences. The anomalies identied and
inferred have been subdivided for analysis into: unrealistic space/time
(synchronizations and repetitions, duplications, spatial incongruities,
logical errors and perfections), mediated reality and the eye metaphor
and, nally, diegetic technological analysis.
3.1. Unrealistic space/time
In the lm, even though most of the footage functions around a neat,
retro and realistic aesthetic, there are moments where space/time does
not correspond to human perception in natural conditions, creating an
atmosphere of uncertainty and indecision about reality. This cognitive
dissonance is worked narratively in a peculiar way, as it does not allow
the otherness of the external vision and always puts the public in the
protagonist’s shoes, with a variety of shots, from the wide and general
long shots (LG) to details in big close-ups (BCU), focusing either on
subjectivity or expecting her reactions, more exacerbated with each
step. Perceived reality diverges between what is actually believed to
be reality and the experience of simulations or memories, breaking
down the gap between reality and imagination in a narrative in which
different temporal and physical spaces coexist simultaneously.
3.1.1. Synchronisations and repetitions
Real life is not perfect, rather, it is based on entropy and causality. So,
the extreme synchronization of actions separates the spectator from the
reality lmed and proposed by Wilde, like a pattern that lets us see the
threads that connect the pieces. The elimination of the viewer’s suspen-
sion of disbelief slips through the gaps of VR in its simulated perfection.
As an example of this, the perfectly coordinated departure of cars and
husbands every morning (s. 4, 21, 28, 60), children who dress alike and
speak at the same time (s. 14) or the repetition through the radio that
all women are one entity (s. 22). But it is not only synchronization that is
present throughout the lm; the repetition of actions such as breakfasts
(s. 3, 44, 59) and housework (s. 6, 61) overwhelms the viewer and is
a metaphor for daily oppression. The discovery, at dinner time (s. 47),
that all the couples’ stories have the same origin and development is a
plot twist that makes Alice’s mental castle crumble. The ballet scenes
are of particular importance, both in the protagonist’s reality and in her
visions. The teacher repeats “There is beauty in control, there is grace
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Imagined and liquid reality, dystopia and virtuality in science ction cinema: Don’t Worry Darling, a case study
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Artnodes, No. 33 (January 2024) I ISSN 1695-5951 A UOC scientic e-journal
2024, Sara Calvete-Lorenzo; Andrés Rozados-Lorenzo; Rocío del Pilar Sosa-Fernández
2024, of this edition FUOC
in symmetry.” The dance is a metaphor for synchronization and control
over the bodies of the kidnapped women (s. 8, 26, 31, 76) [Figure 1].
Figure 1. Synchronization in Don’t Worry Darling (Olivia Wilde, 2022)
Source: New Line Cinema & Vertigo Entertainment
3.1.2. Duplications
The other, the mirror as a metaphor for the doubling-up of reality, the
virtual and the kidnapped, both of which Alice experiences, is present
throughout the lm in the house-cleaning tasks (s. 61) [Figure 2], as well
as, above all, in the ballet classes. In one of them, Alice sees her reection
as Margaret (s. 31), a woman from Project Victoria who is supposed to
be losing her mind, the guilt falling on this racialized character, with all
its weight and social ostracism, for the presumed death of her son while
trying to escape from the Project. Alice sees herself as Margaret in one of
her visions, trying violently to headbutt her way out of the mirror that traps
her in a world that is not hers. Even the portal out of reality is a mirror that
Alice uses unsuccessfully on one occasion and successfully at the end of
the lm (s. 75). In numerous lms, mirrors are used to symbolize the inner
search of the protagonist, the process of identication in this world and
even to show a split in their personality.
Figure 2. Duplication in Don’t Worry Darling (Olivia Wilde, 2022)
Source: New Line Cinema & Vertigo Entertainment
3.1.3. Spatial incongruities
The errors regarding space are continuous, signifying the spatial inco-
herence of the suburb with the imperfection of the computer program
that generates Alice’s reality. Perhaps the most paradigmatic example
of this is the scene in which, as the protagonist cleans the physical
space between the wall and the glass, it begins to shrink over her (s.
29), trapping her, drowning her. Instantly, everything returns to perfect
normality [Figure 3].
Figure 3. Spatial incongruity in Don’t Worry Darling (Olivia Wilde, 2022)
Source: New Line Cinema & Vertigo Entertainment
3.1.4. Logical errors
Such errors throughout the lm underscore this counter-logical con-
structed VR, none of which could occur in the real world. A box of eggs,
one after another, with nothing inside, is logically impossible in reality
and animal sexuality (s. 11), this is one of the rst triggers that Alice
experiences in her home and her life as a housewife. A plane crashes in
the mountains near Project Victoria (s. 23), an accident of which there
is no trace. As for Margaret’s suicide and miraculous recovery, as if this
circumstance were not enough, when Alice decides to steal the papers
from the doctor (s. 38) she cannot read them as they are pre-censored
for her eyes for safety purposes in a world that is designed to keep her
in darkness [Figure 4].
Figure 4. Logical error in Don’t Worry Darling (Olivia Wilde, 2022)
Source: New Line Cinema & Vertigo Entertainment
3.2. Intermediated reality, the eye metaphor
The continuous zenithal shots remind the audience of the visual organs,
the ever-present eye as a metaphor for the designed and monitored
control over Alice and the other women. As Roman Gubern would say:
“Having eliminated the camera and the spectator, the synthesized
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Artnodes, No. 33 (January 2024) I ISSN 1695-5951 A UOC scientic e-journal
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2024, of this edition FUOC
image is born of an eye without a body” (Gubern 1996). References to
eyes are scattered throughout the lm: circular placement of cars (s.
60), frying pans and boiling pots (s. 27), the model of the project (s. 14),
architectural elements and the symmetry of the real and hallucinated
dances (s. 35). The eye is what Alice pierces for the viewer to discover
the cruel reality (s. 52, 53), that she is a professional surgeon and Jack
a failed gamer who begins to take an interest in a website that states:
“Modern society has stied our true selves, our biological destiny.” After
Jack’s death and the pursuit of the man in red, Alice goes through the
mirror and the last eye that accompanies the story (s. 76), and she is
nally heard waking up in her bed, but a black background no longer
allows the viewer to accompany her.
3.3. Technology
In the Victoria project, technology is a retro proposal in consonance with
the rest of the community. Tube TVs (s. 34) with programmes intended
for idle housewives, the radio (s. 22) playing and accompanying the
women in their daily chores while bombarding them with reactionary
slogans: “Thank you for being quiet, thank you for supporting your hus-
bands, thank you for knowing how to keep yourselves in second place,
etc.” Also, landlines hanging on the wall, like the one from which Alice
receives Margaret’s desperate call (s. 30) [Figure 5, left].
In contrast, the virtual reality devices attached to the faces of the
abducted women (s. 65) as they lie in their beds have a counter-pres-
ence; small, ultra-technological, modern for the contemporary era [Fig-
ure 5, right]. This technology is only useful to the subjugated women, it
will never be at their disposal throughout the lm, and the public will not
be allowed to view it until the source of the inconsistencies observed in
the footage is revealed.
Figure 5. Comparative Technology in Don’t Worry Darling (Olivia Wilde, 2022)
Source: New Line Cinema & Vertigo Entertainment
Conclusions
The perception of reality is the common thread that runs through the
narrative analysed. While technology paradoxically increases personal
interconnectedness and, at the same time, the isolation of the individ-
ual, virtual reality would be one of its most notable expressions in the
contemporary liquid world and its lmic expressions. In relation to the
objective of the study, different conclusions can be drawn from the rep-
resentation in contemporary science ction cinema and the repressive
ideologies represented therein, as well as the protagonist’s yearning for
liberation as a current trend in science ction.
In the specic case of Don’t Worry Darling, immersion in simulated
reality reduces the critical thinking and curiosity of the women who in-
habit the Victoria Project, focusing their existences on the superciality
of content, being a literal blinder to the real environment in the form
of the optical device that their male partners place on them after their
abduction and rebirth. All this in order to physically represent the reac-
tionary patriarchal nostalgia for the solid reality and nuclear structure of
the old values generated in this dystopia.
However, minor or major signs of incoherence in actions or events
(synchronizations and/or repetitions), natural behaviours (duplications),
spatial incongruities or outright impossible errors, added to the purely
gaslighting responses and interactions of the characters surrounding
Alice, are a wake-up call to the viewer as a turning point in the ve-
racity of the perceived reality, as well as a metaphor for the struggle
for emancipation in the protagonist’s awareness of her own repressive
situation in an archaic society, like an island in the modern world.
Likewise, Olivia Wilde proposes to the audience a symbolic game
with music and references to the watchful eye, continually mediating
the reality experienced by the protagonist and accompanied by the
spectator. It is relevant to highlight how the degree of immersion in
virtual reality increases chronologically in science ction cinema as the
technology itself advances in parallel. That is to say, the characters go
from having an experience in front of a screen simulating television to
being, in this case, totally immersed in an environment created with
narratives in different space-time scenarios. However, the degree
of willingness to evade reality, represented as crude and indifferent,
diminishes; it becomes involuntary, with the kidnapping, plotted unilat-
erally by the romantic partners and failed men from the conservative
patriarchal vision of the male provider, of the women who comprise the
Victoria Project.
The interest in lived experiences leaves the physical world aside to
evolve toward the mental world, constituting the predominance of mind
over body. The passivity of the female body lying in bed and, in turn,
active in the more traditional role of caregiver, housewife and provider
of sexual relief, constitutes the dystopia of technology and the lack of
limits between reality and ction all of which draws our attention to the
role and capacity of humanity in a markedly technological future.
In conclusion, Don’t Worry Darling differs from most current or past
lms that integrate VR into dystopia by masking VR itself, its technolo-
gies and its elements while gradually revealing its imperfections in the
creation of immersion, which generates the original approach of this
study. Technological evolution in today’s liquid society is integrated into
the immersive concealment throughout the lm, generating a specic
contemporary case where new technologies and retro aesthetics, as
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Imagined and liquid reality, dystopia and virtuality in science ction cinema: Don’t Worry Darling, a case study
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
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Artnodes, No. 33 (January 2024) I ISSN 1695-5951 A UOC scientic e-journal
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2024, of this edition FUOC
well as the archaic, its traditional and patriarchal longing and its liquid
evolution are intertwined. It is certainly difcult to anticipate the new
narratives of emerging science ction cinema, nevertheless, the im-
mersive technological dystopia will be increasingly present
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Artnodes, No. 33 (January 2024) I ISSN 1695-5951 A UOC scientic e-journal
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2024, of this edition FUOC
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Imagined and liquid reality, dystopia and virtuality in science ction cinema: Don’t Worry Darling, a case study
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
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Artnodes, No. 33 (January 2024) I ISSN 1695-5951 A UOC scientic e-journal
2024, Sara Calvete-Lorenzo; Andrés Rozados-Lorenzo; Rocío del Pilar Sosa-Fernández
2024, of this edition FUOC
CV
Sara Calvete-Lorenzo
University of Santiago de Compostela
sara.calvete.lorenzo@usc.es
https://linktr.ee/SaraCalveteLorenzo
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0442-5367
Sara Calvete-Lorenzo (A Coruña, 1986) is a doctorand in Communication
and Contemporary Information at the University of Santiago de Compostela,
with her thesis: O triplo corte, como despedazar o corpo na pantalla. She
is also a professor at the School of Communication Sciences and investi-
gator of the Audiovisual Studies Group at the same university. Her lines of
research within the communicative eld focus on narrative and semiotic
cinematic analysis of the body, especially the female.
Andrés Rozados-Lorenzo
University of Santiago de Compostela
andres.rozados@rai.usc.es
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1333-6756
Andrés Rozados-Lorenzo (Pontevedra, 1986) is a doctorand in Commu-
nication and Contemporary Information at the University of Santiago de
Compostela. His lines of research within the communicative eld focus on
the relationship between lm and advertising.
Rocío del Pilar Sosa-Fernández
University of Santiago de Compostela
rociodelpilar.sosa@rai.usc.es
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3704-7297
Rocío del Pilar Sosa-Fernández (Lima, 1988) is a doctorand in Commu-
nication and Contemporary Information at the University of Santiago de
Compostela. She is also a researcher of the Audiovisual Studies Group at
the same university. Her lines of research within the communicative eld
focus on immersive technologies and their relationship to education.
