The narrative behind the big Harry Styles bid for movie stardom has so far been more alluring than the actual Harry Styles bid for movie stardom, an all-too-perfect ascent rapidly losing steam by the day. The teen heartthrob turned legit pop star kicked things off not inauspiciously, with a small turn in a large movie, Christopher Nolan’s second world war epic Dunkirk, and he proceeded to book back-to-back biggies, Olivia Wilde’s suburban sci-fi thriller Don’t Worry Darling and prestige gay romance My Policeman, both films headed for glitzy premieres on the fall festival circuit.
But as the train was ready to leave the station, the wheels were already close to falling off, a swirl of negativity surrounding both films and both performances. By now, reports of toxicity on the set (and at the premiere) of Don’t Worry Darling have been eclipsed by reviews of equal toxicity as the film sank in the canals of Venice with a mostly worrying response. The majority of critics slapped a massive question mark on Styles’s acting ability, a role too limited and limiting to tell us all that much met with an anticlimactic sea of shrugs.
