Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Ari Aster has as insightful an understanding of human nature as any film director working today, and its his dark sensibilities mixed with his relevant, subversive messages that makes his films so interesting. His movies are horror, yes, but calling him a horror director sounds about as accurate as calling Steely Dan a classic rock band. It isn't "wrong" to say so, but there's a lot more going on beneath the surface than what the genre title implies. And man is there a lot going on beneath the surface of Midsommar. More than one review can do justice. Enough that I really couldn't get it all in just one viewing. The first viewing confused and challenged me as many great films do. It felt as much like a Bergman movie as it did Tobe Hooper. On second viewing, I came away convinced that Midsommar was not a horror movie at all, but one of the cinema's great break-up movies--A hallucinogenic metaphor for one girl's passage through pain, suffering, heartache, and eventually transformation. Midsommar follows young couple Dani and Christian as they spend a month in Sweden observing the summer rituals of an obscure commune called the Harga. Dani (played with such tremendous vulnerability and empathy by newcomer Florence Pugh) is in grief from a horrific tragedy, and despite her ailing relationship with her distant beau Christian (Jack Reyner) she thinks the fresh air might due her (and her relationship) some good. Spoiler Alert: It doesn't. In the wake of Dani's grief Christian is incapable of consoling her through his fog of American frat-boy selfishness. The communication is so dead in the water that each time they're on screen together it serves as a further death nell in the courtship coffin. We feel for Dani. She's so alone in this dark place with no comfort but an aloof jerk-off boyfriend and his two male friends who can only speak through high-minded pretensions and sarcastic humor. The only person who serves any comfort is Christian's Swede friend Pelle, who serves as a gentle though secretive mediator between the American travelers and the Commune. The small ancestral site, The Harga, is a character unto itself. Sure to go down as one of the most memorable and haunting sites in Horror movie history. The sun never goes down in this place, and all of the slanted buildings have a trippy Caligari style to them. Every building has a character, every wall a story. The buildings are full of ornately crafted drawings--full of runes and symbols and mysteries--you want to pause some of these shots and just look at them. How much time and thought did it take to build all of this? And how much does this relate to the entire story? There seems to be a whole mythology buried beneath scene. In other films we would ask why these people haven't left yet.. But here I understand. The locale is gorgeous. And the people are beautiful. They not only give respect to the one disabled person in the community, but give him a place of honor. So who in fact are the real villains here? The ominous commune, or the intrusive, disrespectful Americans who have no respect for different cultures other than getting what's theirs. Aster is a master at manipulating our expectations and probing the Toxic contents of the American Heart. He did it with tremendous cruelty and dread in Hereditary. And with just a little more kindness, he brings the ugliness of American selfishness and entitlement out into the light in Midsommar. As a straight-up horror film Midsommar is a lot less effective than Hereditary--which crawled under my skin for many, many months. The film is way too long, and there are a few sub-plots which really don't go anywhere. But It's a bold, calculating, gorgeous, and compelling vision. I can't remember such a movie being played at mainstream cinemas. How the heck did it get in?