Escaping Love Intricacy in Marriage Through Virtual Reality to Reach ‘Ideal’ Love: Don’t Worry Darling (2022)

One of society's biggest fears nowadays is the possibility of Artificial Intelligence (AI) taking over the world. Especially in this era of globalization, it is impossible not to use a little technology in everyday life. Even so, society must be wise in utilizing the advantages of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Overly romanticizing technology will make us too dependent on technology. Technology won't be around forever. When we depend too much on technology, it is difficult to survive when faced with everyday life problems.

The film industry has a variety of portrayals in showing the world the dangerous side of AI. It predicts the future of AI while also showing the audience the multiple layers of having AI as a day-to-day company. Predicting the future of the world through film has expanded expectations through people's imagination. Unfortunately, although there are many advantages to AI, there are also many drawbacks.

Not every problem can be solved with AI. When it comes to emotional problems, they only can be solved by humans because it's what differentiates us from robots. We, humans, have feelings and minds that robots do not. The movie Don't Worry Darling portrays the downfall when you can't decide which problem can only be solved with human emotions and which can't.

Tells the story of a married couple whose life is too perfect, Don't Worry Darling is a film that will trick you into the perfection of the life depicted. Jack and Alice are a husband and wife whose life is perfect and always happy. Jack goes to work in the morning with breakfast cooked by his wife. Meanwhile, Alice is a faithful wife who waits for her husband to come home and is delighted to look after their home. Living in an isolated California desert town called Victory, Alice often hangs out with friends who have the same routine. As time goes by, Alice realizes the oddities in her life. It all started when she broke an egg with nothing inside, only the shell. Alice began to suspect strange things after that as if her world were artificial. Many residents suddenly give her warnings to be aware of something. Until she finally realized it, Alice was haunted by memories she didn't recognize. When Alice talked about it with her husband, she was thought to be mentally ill and taken to a psychiatric facility. Instead of recovering, Alice increasingly realizes that her life is fake. Her life in 1950 has been a fake simulation that her husband applied for them to avoid their reality, where Alice works as a surgeon, and Jack is unemployed. Victory is nothing but an artificial city, where everyone is there to escape their reality. Wrapped in horror and brutality, this film ends tragically with Alice killing Jack to go back to real life.

The initial thought of Jack to run away from his problems, thinking AI is the solution is not something to be justified. No matter how difficult a situation is, a conversation needs to happen between him and his wife to solve this emotional struggle. AI would seem so beautiful from the one-layered perspective of people. However, when it comes to AI, it is a tool to help you solve a problem, not the solution to the problem.

Jack: We’re perfect in here. Don’t you want to be perfect with me?

Jack's idea of perfection is impossible to reach in the real world. Marriage will have a few obstacles over time. His obsession with perfection has led him to nowhere but anxiety. When Alice keeps having epiphanies, Jack convinces her over and over to stay in the simulation for them to have a perfect life. He keeps worrying whether or not Alice is happy with the doom he created himself. Jack's application to the Victory simulation world is the start of his marriage downfall.

Jack: Our life, this, we can lose this.

The anxiety filling Jack's system is the effect of being obsessed with perfection in a virtual world. He would do whatever it takes for perfection. When things do not go according to his plan, he freaks out. Even when it's torturing Alice to drag her to a psychiatric facility, he still does it to keep that perfect image of Alice. Jack knows that the psychiatric facility is not real. It is just an alibi when it's a place for people to get their memory restarted, so they can't remember what life they could've had other than in Victory. The line between what's real and what's fake is gone for Jack. He doesn't care. Whatever happens, his brain has been washed by the beauty of AI.

Alice: I had a dream. A really weird dream. 

Jack: Know what weird dreams make me? Hungry.

Alice's attempts to express her feelings are always denied by Jack, making Alice feel like she is crazy when she is hallucinating. Jack avoids conversations that lead to confrontation. This causes him to be trapped in the game he is playing himself. Jack's anxiety over his own games makes him manipulative toward his wife. Jack strives to be an exemplary husband to gain his wife's trust. Therefore, whatever Jack does, his wife will always believe in him.

Due to his inability to comprehend his wife's feelings, Jack resorts to making her escape from the problems he creates. It is unfortunate that he fails to acknowledge the challenges his wife faces and adds to her burden by not providing the support she needs to overcome the difficulties they face together. Unemployment and poverty—both of these things can be strong motives for someone to do something unthinkable. Jack took away Alice's right to live freely with her work. In fact, Alice is happy to support her family. However, Jack thinks his wife is suffering because she has to provide for their family. Instead of looking for a job, he instead looks for happiness with the help of the fake world of AI.

Alice: I had a life. You took my life.

Jack: No, I saved your life.

Alice: That’s not true.

Jack: No, listen to me. You worked all the time!

Alice: I wanted to work! I loved working! What?

Jack: You were miserable. You were so unhappy. You hated your life!

Alice: It was my life! My life! You don’t get to take that from me!

How tragic it is to imagine the sacrifice of a husband who really only wanted to make his wife happy, but instead it ended in disaster. Happiness should not be measured by how perfect your world is, but by how many things you are grateful for. Instead of making his wife happy, Jack tortured her by giving her a fake world. He has no right to decide on his wife's life without her permission.

Jack's behavior can be experienced by people addicted to the perfection of life made by AI. With the help of AI, we can create and explore our ideal life without the effort required to achieve it in reality. It's easy to get lost in the perfection of technology. The perfection of AI can blind us to real life. Excessive use of AI can severely damage our social life and take a toll on our emotional health. The over-reliance on technology may be hindering emotional awareness and logical thinking. Take an example with Jack. He has lost all of his logical sense. He would torture his wife and manipulate her into thinking she has a perfect life rather than communicate their life problems together. Using modern technology constantly will reduce our critical thinking skills as well. They make our lives easier. However, technology makes humans lazy to think because they already thought technology would solve their problems. As a result, society will possibly lose basic survival skills to live in real life.

We can take a look at a man who used to like to enter Virtual Reality (VR) for fun as a real life example. His name is Wolf Heffelfinger. At first, he was simply playing laser tag in virtual reality. As time went by, he was addicted to the thrill of escaping the real world. Even his wife warned him about his addiction. However, he brought up an opinion about VR. Heffelfinger stated that although he seeks a dopamine rush in VR, that does not mean he wants to stay forever. Part of him always wants to go out. 

“I like going into virtual reality,” he said. “But I always want to come out.” 

Care to find out more about Wolf Heffelfinger? Click on this page.

The differences between the Heffelfinger and Jack cases are apparent. Heffelfinger, who feels he still wants to get out of VR, is a sign that he still has common sense, as his brain is still beckoning him to get out of VR. Subconsciously, his body was warning him not to become obsessed with VR. On the other hand, Jack had lost all logic. He no longer thinks about the consequences of living a fake life every day. Victory, the artificial world that Jack had entered, had captivated him completely. He was so engrossed in its wonders that the thought of returning to the real world was the last thing on his mind. The difference in the level of addiction for Jack is very high. Therefore, he would not be able to receive any logical explanation from anyone because his brain is washed by the glamorization of AI.

At the end of the day, solving problems with Artificial Intelligence (AI) will never work because it is just the fastest way to find an escape. Perfect love doesn't exist if both parties don't work on it equally. When there are problems in a relationship, it's a good idea to communicate about them instead of running away looking for an ideal life in Virtual Reality (VR). AI will not solve the problem. It will only make it worse.