REVIEW #87 Midsommar (2019)

Midsommar, directed by Ari Aster follows Dani and Christian, a couple having issues as a result of Dani’s recent psychological trauma. In an attempt to make amends and fix things, they both visit a friends ancestral commune in Sweden where things don’t go quite to plan.

CAST & THE ACTING 

Florence Pugh leads the cast as Dani and I am a big fan of Florence’s work so I expected her to deliver a great performance, which she certainly did. She really emphasised the trauma that Dani was going through with her performance, which causes you to have a lot of sympathy with the character and you take a liking to her almost immediately. Her body language and facial expressions play a huge part in this film and they really visualise Dani’s emotions well. Her partner Christian is played by Jack Reynor and I think his performance at the start of the film is completely different to what we see at the end of the film. At first it was average at best, he didn’t really have to portray much emotion and his character was pretty flat so we didn’t get to see much from him. However as the film progressed he improved a lot, especially when a sense of paranoia kicked in for his character towards the end of the film, he captured that nicely. Will Poulter is also in this film, who plays Mark a friend of Christians. Unfortunately we don’t get to see too much of him at all and what we did see, wasn’t exactly a performance that stands out. The other actors done a good enough job to set the tone of the film, the Swedish commune members did come across really strange and freaky so I guess the actors done well to portray that aspect of their characters.

PLOT & THE STORYLINE 

The plot of the film is rather strange, one of Christians friends (Pelle) invites his friendship group to Sweden to visit his ancestral commune. Slowly things don’t seem to add up and unexplained disappearances start to look suspicious to some of the visitors. That element of the storyline is pretty predictable, you know what’s going to happen because we have seen this sort of plot in many other films. However how it all happens is the disturbing part that really took me back, it’s just so strange! 

The film does progress pretty slowly, I don’t think it needed to be 2.5 hours long because the first hour is the build up that just takes too long and nothing really happens. There is a strong theme of drugs and hallucinogens that play a big role in this film, it’s the communes attempt at manipulating the guests and making them vulnerable. It also plays tricks with the audience because it gets you guessing at what’s real and what’s not, which was a nice touch. The ending and final reveal, if you will, is probably the freakiest part and it’s almost like the writer was on hallucinogens themselves just to come up with it! But that being said it had me sitting there for quite a while after it had finished just thinking about what I just watched, still having so many questions. I still don’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing and wether that was the intentional by the director but the plot was disturbing and thought provoking at the same time which fit the genre well.

CINEMATOGRAPHY & SPECIAL EFFECTS 

The cinematography and effects we’re actually pretty good, what I really enjoyed was how they portrayed the trip the characters had when they were on the drugs. A lot of film makers go so over the top but with Midsommar they were really subtle about it, yes you could clearly tell this was the effects of the drugs but it blended in to the scene very nicely which I felt authentically showed how that sort of experience is. The special effects were also a big part of that, looking realistic and subtle. What I also liked is how this film used the actors singing as a form of musical score for the scenes. This singing, almost a harmony from members of the commune, made me feel very uncomfortable at times and it really gave the impression that something strange was going on. The costume design was also rather symbolic, having the commune members dress identically but having the visitors in normal clothes highlighted them as outsiders. The only time we see the visitors dressed the same is at the end when Dani and Christian are a main part of their ceremony and therefore considered members of the commune, even if that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

OVERALL (7/10)

This film is the strangest film I have watched for a very long time, I hate the horror genre because I feel like most rely on jumps and scares as the main connection to the audience. However this is the type of horror I enjoy, it’s freaky and it’s thought provoking, it left me with so many questions but I think that was the intention of the director. Florence Pugh steals the show which is usually the case with anything she is cast in but the other cast members do well too. The pacing of the film is pretty slow, it certainly didn’t need to be 2.5 hours long because the first hour left me quite bored. From watching the trailer you can guess what’s going to happen but there is no way you can guess how it happens because the events in the 2nd half of the film really shocked me! It was both strange and disturbing which probably sums up the film pretty well. I would recommend watching it for sure but be prepared for it to be one of the weirdest films you’ll watch! 

Thanks for reading.

Callan