Don’t Worry Darling has gone down as one of the most drama-filled and talked about films of 2022. And now, finally, after populating the news cycle for months, it is out in theatres for all of us to see. However, it turns out the drama movie, directed by Olivia Wilde, originally had a much darker ending than the one cinephiles may have just recently seen on the big screen.
Warning major spoilers ahead! Don’t Worry Darling was a story initially conceived by Carey and Shane Van Dyke, before it was altered and tweaked by Wilde and Katie Silberman. In the ending of the adapted story, we see the 1950s housewife Alice (Florence Pugh) become suspicious of her reality and marriage. Her husband Jack (Harry Styles) sends her to electroshock therapy, where she begins to uncover her memories. She learns that she is actually in a simulation and then accidentally kills her husband as she makes her escape.
Audiences were left with a cliffhanger as we hear a gasp, of Alice presumably waking up in the real world, before the credits begin to roll. Pretty bleak, right? Well, Don’t Worry Darling’s ending was originally set to be a lot more intense and angst-filled.
According to Insider, in the original ending, we actually see Alice get out of the simulation into the real world and find out that she is now in the year 2050. Things get more unsettling from here on out as she finds out that she and Jack (Harry Styles) were divorced this whole time – adding another creepy element to that whole relationship.
Speaking about creepy, while searching for answers on her computer, she also discovers that she is a ‘missing person’ who is presumed dead (major yikes). After learning all the facts, she returns to the simulation before Jack can find out she knows what is up and begins to search for another way out of this nightmare scenario. Alice then ultimately ends up confronting and torturing Jack until he tells her how to get out of the virtual reality.
However, Jack being the messed-up control freak he is, then follows after her as she escapes, which leads to Alice stabbing and killing him in order to save herself. Unfortunately, Alice’s future is pretty grim in the original ending of the thriller movie from here.
She wakes up in the 1950s again, this time in a hospital where she is locked up essentially for hysteria and killing her husband. But fear not friends; there is kind of a happy ending to this original script. Bunny (Wilde), aka Alice’s best friend, comes to her rescue and the two escape through another exit portal that Bunny happens to find.
While some elements and the story are essentially the same, the original version did offer more detail about the world outside of the simulation, which could have been fun to see. Still, despite the changes, Don’t Worry Darling has been performing well at the box office, so obviously, some audiences don’t seem to mind about what could have been.
Don’t Worry Darling is out in cinemas now. For more top picks, here is our guide to the best science fiction movies of all time.