​Hollywood has long made movies about the odd lives of American suburbia, from Douglas Sirk to Sam Mendes.  There’s lots to critique about the whole arrangement, wherein a country that supposedly prides itself on individuality plagued with homeowner’s associations.  Plenty of directors have taken their crack at the claustrophic conformity of lawns and fences and 2.3 children, and Olivia Wilde is in good company with her second feature, Don’t Worry Darling.  A Stepford Wives for the 2020’s, the story of Wilde’s film was taken over by behind-the-scenes gossip, but beneath all the Zapruder-style videos about whether or not Harry Styles spit on Chris Pine at Cannes is a respectable psychodrama and a creative swerve from a director coming off raunchy and riotous teen comedy Booksmart.  Don’t Worry Darling isn’t topping the Far From Heavens of the world, but it does spark a desire to go back and watch Mad Men for a second helping of this time period.

​The last time Rian Johnson made a sequel, the studio undid all the work he did on the story and reverted to the status quo in the next and final entry.  The complete jumbling of plot in the Disney Star Wars trilogy, which had Johnson leading the pivotal and ultimately unfulfilled middle chapter, remains one of the biggest fumbles in recent big-budget filmmaking, and Johnson has learned his lesson with the creation of a new franchise, albeit one that only retains tone and a central character for this and presumably many other adventures to come.  A sequel to 2019’s smash hit Knives Out, Glass Onion brings southern detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) back for another murder mystery, and though new producer Netflix bungled the release strategy, Johnson is free to do whatever he wants on the production side.  The result is a sequel that improves on the original, utilizing all the quirks and tropes of the genre to tell a story about wealth and hubris that smells contemporary but will stay evergreen thanks to a neverending supply of overconfident billionaires.