If Olivia Wilde were a man

VEN BEFORE ANYONE HAD SEEN THE FINAL TRAILER for Olivia Wilde’s second feature as director, the retro fantasy rumors swirled that one of its stars, Florence Pugh, had come to despise Wilde. Pugh has done minimal press for the film, so even if her silence can be read as an attempt to distance herself from the project, we don’t know what she truly thinks. The speculation is that she’s angry with Wilde for initially forcing her to work with Shia LaBeouf, who has admitted to a pattern of abuse in his personal life. (LaBeouf was subsequently fired from the film or left voluntarily, depending on which story you believe.) Then, reportedly—though who can cite trailer dropped, in July, the world of social media lit up like a fire at a munitions factory, with movie pundits and even critics—who should know better—claiming that the film, now deemed a “troubled production,” looked terrible. The phrase quickly wore out its welcome as a meme. When the film premiered in Venice on Sept. 5, the reviews were mixed to negative.