Review - Midsommar

Last year, a film came out called Hereditary, directed by Ari Aster. It didn't quite make my end of the year list but it was a super impressive horror film that left me staring with fear at dark corners for weeks. Only a year later, Aster is back with his follow-up Midsommar, another horror film, although one that goes for very different things through very different means. The plot is that Dani (my lord and saviour Florence Pugh) has had a horrific event happen in her recent past, meaning that her boyfriend has had to postpone breaking up with her, instead choosing to invite her on a trip to Sweden with his friends. This trip is to go to a mysterious festival, a festival that only happens once every 90 years, so very exciting stuff. Except that there's a lot of weird shit going down and it only seems to be getting more and more intense. Structure wise, it is evocative of Hereditary in that it is a slow burn until the crazy shit fully goes down, although there's a comparison Aster made that this film is "The Wizard of Oz for perverts". I've discussed this with other people who have seen the film and they were all baffled by it but I had it at the front of my mind while I was watching it and I encourage you to think about that if you do watch the film. Story and structure-wise then, it's a very satisfying journey that leads to a conclusion I was very happy with.

Going back to Hereditary, one of the things that was most impressive about that film was the performances, specifically Toni Colette in the lead role. Clearly Aster has a knack for bringing talent out of his performers as that has carried over into Midsommar. I'll open straight up with it, Florence Pugh is incredible. As I said at the start, she's been one of my favourite actors for about a year now (if you want proof of her talents, the film Lady Macbeth or mini-series The Little Drummer Girl are great examples) and this could be her best work yet? For the first minute or so, I was trying to get over the fact that she was using an accent but then for the rest of the film, her agony was my agony, her anguish made my stomach shrivel. She is the perfect audience surrogate, never being anything less that totally believable. As he scumbag boyfriend Christian we have Jack Reynor. Now, despite having been in some great films before this, he is always in my mind as part of one of cinema's worst scenes, the "Romeo and Juliet clause" scene from Transformers 4 (if you're fortunate enough to not know what I'm talking about, look it up on YouTube). I will never forget that he was in it but after his stellar work here, I am ready to forgive him for it. If he hadn't been so casually callous, the film would have fallen apart. Christian has two friends coming with him though, played by Will Poulter and William Jackson Harper. Both have done superb work before on TV or film and they keep that up in Midsommar, although Harper in particular is so iconic as Chidi in The Good Place that it took me a while to disconnect. It's worth saying though that everyone is great, it's just that most of the cast are first time actors so it's harder to single them out as great, even though they all are!

But Midsommar is a horror film and as ever, the big question is whether it's scary or shit, the answer to which is... Complicated. To make the Hereditary comparison one last time, even with the complex things that film was going for, it was definitely scary, keeping me up until 3am the night I saw it because I kept seeing stuff in the shadows. Midsommar is different immediately because it's set almost entirely in the daylight and yet still, there is a constant sense of dread. A couple of horrific things are peppered in (with more frequency as the film progresses) but for the most part, it's just that awful feeling that something horrible is going to happen soon, done very well. There's a curious range of other emotions present though, one of which was humour. This is a film that is quite funny, sometimes in moments that I won't spoil, other times through Will Poulter's character Mark, one of the great cinema douchebags of recent years. Equally though, there is a bizarre catharsis to the whole film. In Greek times, the place of tragedy in theatre was to act as catharsis for the audience (I should know, I wrote a very bad essay on it in sixth form) and certain horror films offer that too, of which Midsommar is one of the more powerful examples. So powerful was this catharsis that, by the gonzo ending, I was actually crying. Of course I won't say why, I won't even gesture, it was simply so powerful I was moved to tears. Quickly I wanna chat about the visuals here, because they're beautiful. Like I was saying, it's set in daylight which is bizarre but it all works so well for the film, which as a whole has something of a Peter Greenaway vibe. Many of you probably don't know that name, I'm using it to be a total wanker, think of the aesthetic as perverted Wes Anderson. Point is, I was reminded a lot of his films, mainly Drowning by Numbers, a film which focuses on the rural countryside as well as hiding strange symbols or meanings in the frame. In short, a beautiful looking film that will creep you out and maybe make you cry too?

We have a film with a lot of strange moving parts here then. It may repulse you, it may make you laugh, it'll probably do both. But whatever it does, it's clearly a film made with utterly immaculate craft and even if it isn't for you, I defy you not to be wowed. I did get a lot out of it though, so I'm happy to give Midsommar an