Olivia Wilde’s summer reset

At this time four summers ago in 2022, our gossip preoccupation was Don’t Worry Darling, directed by Olivia Wilde, starring Florence Pugh and also Olivia’s then-boyfriend Harry Styles. Florence wasn’t f-cking with the movie, all kinds of rumours were flying around about what went down on that set, and the most toxic corner of Harry’s fandom was taking full advantage of the situation in a hate campaign to bring Olivia down. The whole mess peaked in August that year when they all went to Venice for the film festival and the internet exploded over a moment at the screening when Harry sat down beside Chris Pine and everyone thought they saw Harry spitting on Chris, it was a time!

Chris later clarified that he was not spat on. But the point is, that was what we were obsessed with four years ago, how was it FOUR YEARS AGO?

If we’re honest, we have to admit that it was fun – for gossips like us, it was fun. If we are honest, we have to admit that there was one loser to come out of it, and it was Olivia, and for her, it was not fun. She was a laughingstock, she was despised, and this was probably painful for her, which gives our fun a different complexion and perspective in hindsight.

Four years later and Olivia’s promoting a new film, The Invite, her first directorial effort since Don’t Worry Darling. And she’s talking about that experience and the aftermath. In an interview with The Cut she doesn’t complain about what happened but she does explain that she had to take some time to rebuild.

“I don’t think you know what you’re made of until you fall apart. I don’t trust anyone who hasn’t had their heart broken,” she says. “If you can push through the moment you have previously identified as the worst possible thing that could happen to you, whether that is divorce or the internet hating you or whatever, you are forged into something way better than you could have possibly imagined.”

And she also, briefly, addresses the speculation about her being a sh-tty director on DWD and Florence hating her, sort of:

“I have never had a screaming match on my set. I was never not available on set. I wanted to be like, ‘None of this is true,’” she now says about those rumors.

The wording is specific, no names are mentioned. So, as many people have pointed out, that’s not necessarily a denial about her relationship (or non-relationship) with Flo and whether or not she dropped the ball as a director on that project. Something had to have gone down on that set, mistakes were likely made… but maybe what we should be talking about is how it all could have been managed differently and what can be learned.

Because while we all love Florence Pugh, and even if she felt she was let down by a director who wasn’t living up to her responsibilities, I wonder if even Flo would concede that she could have handled it better, knowing what she knows now. Was the treatment that Olivia Wilde received – all the toxicity, the pile-on, the viciousness – was it commensurate with her alleged errors? If we are to analyse the Olivia Wilde case in the context of this industry, where so many esteemed male directors have been flagrantly abusive and then celebrated repeatedly for or in spite of the way they work, did the punishment fit the crime? Flo may have had justification for being disappointed in Olivia, but now that she’s likely aware of what the consequences are, would she have moved the way she did and made it so obvious – and therefore public – if she had to do it over again?

Olivia definitely wouldn’t do it the same. She says that she was advised by the studio to ignore the noise, not to speak out, and that it’s something she regrets because she “deeply hate[s] the feeling of being misunderstood”. Being misunderstood, for her, meant that she was recast, labelled with a new reputation:

“I became the full-on villain. Like Cruella.”

Interestingly, she might be embracing it now. At the premiere of The Invite last night, her look was definitely more Cruella than Cinderella, more villain than ingenue.

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It’s Victorian goth, a style manifestation of both her damage and her defiance. Much has been made lately of Olivia’s looks, her face especially, after an unflattering photo was taken of her on a red carpet and people started calling her Gollum, a creative euphemism, I guess, for “Ozempic face”, which was the implication behind all the discourse about her appearance.

The Ozempic discourse is one thing, and but where Olivia is concerned, if you take 2022 and Don’t Worry Darling into consideration, isn’t it also possible that Olivia Gollum is a result of the beatdown she received on social media, in the public sphere, when they dragged her for whatever she did to Flo, and hooking up with Harry so soon after breaking up with Jason Sudeikis, and sucking at directing? Isn’t this how someone should look when they’re coming out of an internet thrashing? The internet mobilised to tell her that she was worthless, a terrible director, a terrible wife, a terrible woman, a terrible friend, not good enough for Harry, too old for Harry, not talented enough to have Florence Pugh in her movie, an immoral bad mother. Shouldn’t the worst person in the world look like Gollum? If we keep telling someone they are the worst person in the world, why are we then surprised when she looks like the worst person in the world and not instead celebrating that the worst person in the world looks exactly how she should look? Isn’t she giving the people what they want?