Honestly, I feel like I understand Aster better than myself at this point because I truly have no idea why I keep going to his movies. I don’t like horror movies, and I didn’t enjoy watching Hereditary. I have to admit, though, Hereditary really sticks with you. I can vividly recall nearly every single scene of Hereditary, and I certainly can’t say the same of any number of last year’s movies that I liked quite a bit more. Toni Collette’s performance is amazing. In fact, all of the performances are excellent. But that scene driving home from the party is just too awful. I like thinking back on Hereditary far more than I liked watching it because that way I can just skip through to the scenes I enjoyed.
The comedy thing really threw me, but it intrigued me. (I’m not big on horror, but I love anything genuinely funny, even if the humor is uncomfortable or bizarre.)
The ending of the movie also becomes so bizarre that it is often absurdly comical, and this laugh-inducing weirdness seems to be intentional. Much of our audience laughed at certain late developments, and I think Aster fully expected that.
Because of its humor and uncanny, unpredictable weirdness, I liked watching
Midsommar much more than
Hereditary. This is probably one of the least disappointing and most memorable movies of 2019 so far.
The Good:
I think college students should have to watch this film when they study Greek drama. It’s a lovely exploration of tragedy as religious ritual ending in catharsis. (And I love all those chorusy sympathy groans!)
I also recommend using Midsommar as a test for marriage readiness. (On a scale of 0-Christian, how Christian is your boyfriend? Zero is the only acceptable answer if you’re planning to marry the guy.) The film could also be used as a compatibility quiz. (Which character in Midsommar is your boyfriend? If you answer anyone but Simon, then break up yesterday!)
It’s honestly hard to think of a worse movie boyfriend than Christian. The worst part about him is his grating insouciance, the way he approaches every relationship with such self-assured laziness. Life for Christian is just a string of passive microaggressions. He’s not even trying to be a jerk. He’s just doing whatever is convenient at the moment. (I do wonder about the significance of naming him Christian in a movie about a cult, but a spoiler-free review is no place for analysis.)
His friends are also horrible people. One is a self-obsessed grad student so far down the rabbit hole of his dissertation research that he barely registers what is going on with the real people around him. Then comes Mark, who enjoys being a jackass. And finally we have Velle, who’s compassionate, sensitive, an artist, kind, patient, an excellent judge of character, a good listener, and…in a cult. It’s very sad when by far the least objectionable person in your friend group is the cult member. (Actually, the more I think about it, Mark is really not as bad as he seems. Yes, he is a complete jackass, but he’s not engaged to anybody or dedicated to anything. He hasn’t made any promises. He doesn’t pretend to be anything.)
The secluded community in Sweden actually seems like a pretty nice environment. I like the way we keep hearing from the American characters that our culture must seem offensive to them. The way the movie sets it up, our culture seems offensive to us. Midsommar does make suburban life look pretty horrible. It’s almost eerie the way all those dark, cold houses are crammed together. We recoil at the loud, disruptive intrusion of the incessant telephone ring. I like the disorienting, off putting way in which Aster first shows us our ordinary world.
I also think the performances in the film are pretty good, even though we don’t get a show-stopping standout like Toni Collette’s amazing work in Hereditary. Aside from Will Poulter (who manages to be quite funny), the only cast member I’d heard of was Florence Pugh. I keep hearing about Florence Pugh because she’s Amy in the new Little Women, and she’s in the Black Widow movie, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen her myself, so I was grateful to get a look at her. (Jack Dyson seemed vaguely familiar to me, and I finally figured out just now that I saw him in Transformers: Age of Extinction, but I think I’ve only seen that once, five years ago. And I have seen William Jackson Harper in promotional material for The Good Place, though I’ve never seen the show.) Most people in this (unusually international) cast are not stars. But they give engaging performances, especially Poulter and various cult members whose names I’m not sure I have straight.
What really makes this film something special is the loving attention poured into the detailed and striking visuals. Every scene feels so crisp. It looks amazing. It sounds amazing. You could string this movie out like old-fashioned paper dolls, and every doll would be unique and amazing.
I see a lot of movies, so I appreciate it when a filmmaker offers me something worth seeing. What makes this film special is the spectacle, the soundscape, and the eerie vibe. These scenes are so well crafted, and even though it’s fairly clear where the story is headed (you wouldn’t actually call its overall course unpredictable), you still never have a clear idea what’s about to happen next. I enjoyed watching Midsommar because I felt like I had to keep my eyes glued to the screen to see what other new mysterious thing would unfold. This isn’t like going to a standard summer blockbuster and putting your brain on autopilot while you cram popcorn into your face.
To be honest, I wouldn’t mind watching this film again and writing about it in depth. There’s a lot going on in this movie. I think it may be a better film than Hereditary. For sure, it is different from everything else playing in wide release right now. I don’t watch enough horror to know if it is as unique as it seems to me.
Best Scene Visually:
Unlike Ari Aster, I am not a fan of blunt force trauma leading to bloody death. He clearly loves stuff like this. Think about Hereditary. Remember what happens to Charlie. (I don’t even want to write that out, honestly.) Think about how her brother keeps slamming his head into the desk. Also, recall all of those decaying bodies. Midsommar features these types of images galore (unfortunately). I’m not a fan of stuff like this, but I will say that though they are more wince-inducing than scary as you watch, these images do have a way of hiding in the back of your brain and resurfacing just before you fall asleep. So if you enjoy that kind of thing, you may consider this a plus.
Often the film’s cinematography is conspicuously showy. There are lots of aerial shots (which I liked), and even some information revealed in visual form.
My favorite scene in the film, however, is the trippy way the sky turns upside down as the group leaves ordinary civilization and heads out to their remote destination. It’s not exactly subtle, but I really love this scene. I also like one particularly stark image we get in the film’s final sequence. (I must say, the ending is very evocative of Hereditary‘s last scene. All of the elements are so weird and unique, and yet the composition is essentially identical.)
Best Scene/ Best Scene Aurally:
This film definitely contains my favorite sex scene of 2019, possibly of all time. (For sure, this scene needs to be on some kind of greatest hits list.) The sex scene blends weirdly with the procession. I love the surreal use of sound. The odd harmonies are just as compelling as the weird visuals.
Runner up for me was the scene when Christian announces his dissertation topic. This moment confirms everything we’ve suspected about all of these characters.
Best Action Sequence:
All I can remember is the two elderly people, and then the moment someone runs around wildly like Adam trying to escape from God in the Garden of Eden. If I were to write an essay about the latter scene, I would humorously title it “Exit, Pursued by a Bear.”
The Negatives:
I do think the movie comes precariously close to treating major mental illness as a convenient plot device. As someone who is bipolar, I’m always annoyed when one of the only things we see a bipolar character do is commit murder. This used to happen with like every bipolar character in movies, and certainly the news media loves to cite bipolar disorder as the cause of someone’s lethal rampage. More recently, fiction has given us a number of sensitive/nuanced portrayals of bipolar characters. Michael Clayton and Silver Linings Playbook are great at presenting the illness realistically. I’m not a fan of what Ari Aster does here. It feels a little rushed and lazily superficial. But then, I remind myself this is the same man who made Hereditary, which does a great job of presenting how mental illness runs in families. I’m still not thrilled with the use of the totally disposable bipolar character, though I do appreciate that one person’s assumption that she’s just a big drama queen turns out not to be true.
Watching, I was so baffled by the protagonist’s reaction to a certain e-mail. For the love of God, if somebody sends you a message like that then doesn’t respond to your reply, call 9-1-1 immediately. Don’t call your boyfriend! Call 9-1-1. Immediately. My younger sister lives in another city. I am positive that if I sent her such a message, and then nobody answered her calls, she would call 9-1-1 immediately. (I’m dying to ask her about this, but she’s excited for this movie and hasn’t seen it yet.) This really bothered me. I suppose we get an effective and revealing introduction to two main characters very quickly this way, but I feel like this is done at the expense of the bipolar plot device.
Something else bothered me about this movie. I’m not sure if the ending of the movie is supposed to disturb me. It didn’t, which seems shockingly amoral in a movie. It seems like the happy ending to a fairy tale. The only thing that disturbed me was my own complacency, but I’ve got to tell you, that’s pretty contrived outrage. I’m really not disturbed. I’m pleased.
I feel like maybe I should be more disturbed. In fact, I think the movie would be more effective if I suddenly became very disturbed at the end. I remember in sixth grade reading a compelling biography of Hitler from his own point of view which is easy to get lost in. Then in the last chapter, you kind of zoom out and get the point of view of the rest of the world, and you think, “That’s right! This is Hitler! He’s crazy and evil! And this whole time I’ve been reading along going, ‘Uh huh…uh huh…’!”
I think a last minute turn like that would give the film more of a kick, like a punch to the gut at the last second. Instead, I just watched and felt, “Given the options available, this was far from the worst choice.”
Discussing this with my husband led to one of his most delightfully quotable moments. When we were discussing fates of characters in relation to stakes, he reminded me, “He’s gone, too. He died in a _____.” (I’ll let you watch the movie for yourself and fill in the blank.)
I will admit, I didn’t feel too scared during this movie. For the audience, one particular character is the way into the story. One person is designed to win or sympathy, hold our interest, direct our focus. We’re mainly invested in that character. After what happens to her in the first ten minutes of the film, what could be worse? So there’s not really a pervasive sense of danger. I mean, danger is vaguely there for a little while, but as the movie goes on, our sense of security grows. I suppose you could call this an insidious process, but is it? (I guess it is, but honestly, it feels like a happy ending to me. This is probably an indication that I myself would be an ideal target.)
Midsommar should definitely come with a trigger warning for people whose relatives have died violently. And if you are disturbed by injuries that make you wince/unholy themes/evil vagueness, and you don’t enjoy feeling disturbed by those things, then Midsommar might not be for you. (I’ll add, however, that I’m not crazy about stuff like that and still enjoyed the movie!)
If you liked Hereditary, you have nothing to fear from Midsommar. It’s not as neat a film, though. It’s a lot stranger, a steady, slow burn of vague peril that grows increasingly strange. So it is possible that some people who loved Hereditary will consider this film inferior. I think it’s better (or at least, I had more fun watching), and I’m kind of impressed that Ari Aster managed to put out two films of this caliber in back-to-back years.
My husband adds the complaint that the ending seems so much like Hereditary, and I agree that they are practically identical endings. I get the feeling that watching an Ari Aster movie will be like watching a Hitchcock movie. But if in the future, Aster makes a whole bunch of movies that are totally dissimilar, then I’ll be wondering why these two were so alike.
Overall:
I liked Midsommar much better than Hereditary (though I will not deny the brilliance of Toni Collette’s performance in that film). I would never recommend this movie to my mother. She would loathe it. But I would highly recommend this movie to my sister. She will love it. (I think.) So Midsommar is going to be one of those “know your audience” kind of movies. For me personally, when it comes to recent highbrow horror films, I prefer Jordan Peele’s work to Ari Aster’s. But this movie is definitely not more of the same ol’ slog always offered by Hollywood summer blockbusters. This one is special. You’ll have to decide for yourself if that’s a good thing.
