Hereditary was scary fun, for sure. But it wasn’t the life altering, scariest movie in decades that many people clearly felt after watching. It’s becoming clear to me that Ari Aster has a style that people LOVE. Style doesn’t replace substance, and if there’s a dearth of substance, the style can only gloss over so much. You feel that a bit in Hereditary. Midsommar is an even more stark example, drifting dangerously close to the movie point of no return, where people are laughing at your story, not engrossed by it.
For those who don’t know Midsommar is a season famous in Scandanavia, usually because during the summer solstice, there’s no night. 4 Americans are invited by their Swedish friend Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) to celebrate midsommar with a 9 day festival in his home commune. All the Americans have different reasons to participate: Mark (Will Poulter) hopes to hook up with a beautiful Swede. Josh (William Jackson Harper) is writing his thesis on festivals like this one. Christian (Jack Reynor) hopes to get away and get some direction for his life, and Christian’s girlfriend Dani (Florence Pugh) forces her way onto the trip because Jack is her emotional crutch. As the festival continues, stranger and stranger things keep happening, pushing everyone to their limits.
Aster does have a flair for the unsettling. Midsommar’s greatest asset is it’s setting, which has been carefully thought out to put the audience at pure unease. On its surface, an open field with wooden houses everywhere in direct sunlight doesn’t sound that scary. However, the unending sunlight provides a stillness that makes you squirm in your seat. I wish Aster used this uneasiness more, maybe making the leads sleep deprived from the constant sun, or dehydrated from sunburn, something like that. Instead, Aster uses the festival to shock and awe us. How does he do that? Mostly through cheap ploys, like extensive gruesome shots of dead people, or taboo pushing moments, like one of the unsexiest sex scenes put to film. Uncomfortable imagery can work once or twice, but because it’s pretty constant in Midsommar, then the audience quickly becomes numb to its grotesque power.
It’s especially easy to become numb when your story sucks. Aster’s clearly more interested in telling a story visually than with words. That can be fine if you’re Terrence Malick, who’s made a living pulling that off. Aster’s confidence is commendable, but he has a long way to go before he gets to Malick’s level. I figured out Midsommar’s plot about 20 minutes into the movie, which means that audience’s will check out quickly of the storytelling. In addition, the characters aren’t really all that interesting outside of Florence Pugh’s Dani, who almost saves this movie with how good she is. To Aster, the festival is the showcase, leaving the movie rudderless most of the time, since we learn a whole lot of nothing about the people in the commune. So if we’re not supposed to care about the story or characters, we’re supposed to feel queasy looking at ugly stuff for 2 and a half hours? The audience I was with noticed too, because they were laughing more than they were scared or excited. By the end I was so bored and relieved the movie ended that I couldn’t wait to get out of the theater, along with other bored, mildly irritated people.
Ari Aster and I don’t get each other, and I’m ok with that. If looking at creepy images and watching lame characters get a comeuppance is your thing, then Midsommar will delight you. As for me, being the middle of summer, I’m going to encourage everyone to only see this movie if you’re dehydrated from the sun, and need 2 hours to sleep off a hangover or drunkenness.