Mark Reviews Movies: MIDSOMMAR

Become a fan on Facebook Follow on Twitter

Review by Mark Dujsik | July 2, 2019

If Ari Aster's debut feature Hereditary was all about the things lurking in the shadows of the world and the mind, his Midsommar is about what's right in front of us, in the plain sight of a bright day—whether or not we want to, can, or are willing to see it. With the writer/director's sophomore feature, it's almost as if Aster, having thoroughly messed with the minds of audience members by way of hiding assorted things in the dark, has put forth a challenge to himself. It's a pretty risky one, too: Can he a make a legitimately scary horror film in which almost every suspenseful setup and every disturbing payoff take place in daylight?

The short answer is an affirmative one, because we can see what's coming and, when it happens, we witness it with unsettling clarity. The longer answer is that the time of day doesn't really matter when it comes to the secrets of the mind, the heart, and the darker side of society. Either we can see these things, or we can't. If we can see them, we can choose to deny them or to confront them. In Aster's view, either option is deadly.

As in his previous film, there's an inescapable degree of fatalism to Aster's follow-up, in which a group of friends travel to a remote village in Sweden to experience a multi-day, centuries' old festival. These people are doomed—perhaps when they decide to take the trip, maybe when they actually arrive at the village, and definitely when they make certain decisions that go against the wishes and/or traditions of the village's population. Sometimes it matters that one of these characters does something to offend the sensibilities or the beliefs of these folks, and sometimes it doesn't matter at all.

Slowly but surely, Aster's screenplay establishes that there is no escape from this place and these people. The outsiders can see what's happening, but to confront it is to suffer the consequences. To deny or accept it is to suffer a different but equally damning outcome. Such a scenario, established as well and with such a unique sense of foreboding as it is here, is terrifying—no matter the level of light shining upon it.

It all begins with an extended prologue to establish the back story of Dani (Florence Pugh). She's a college student, currently dating Christian (Jack Reynor), which is an especially loaded name when it comes to a confrontation with an isolated group of pagans on their turf. It's probably best not to divine too much from the potential symbolism inherent in the name, because, like the prologue itself, it's likely just a bit of misdirection.

Then again, the tragedy that begins Dani's story isn't entirely narrative sleight of hand. The information we learn isn't nearly as important to the overall story as how one character reacts to it.

Her sister and parents are found dead in the family home—the result of an elaborate murder-suicide perpetrated by the sister. Greif-stricken, Dani turns to her boyfriend of four years for comfort, but just before the discovery of the bodies, he had been discussing a break-up with Dani with his friends. Instead, he invites her to go to that small Swedish village with the research-focused Josh (William Jackson Harper), the jackass Mark (Will Poulter), and village-native Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren).

The friends bypass the city for the country. They do some hallucinogenic mushrooms. Upon arriving in the village, the townsfolk are welcoming—almost too welcoming. The newcomers—who now include Connie (Ellora Torchia) and Simon (Archie Madekwe), an engaged couple whom Pelle's brother Ingemar (Hampus Hallberg) met at school in London—feast. They share a communal sleeping place, where black curtains block out the near-constant sunlight of a Swedish summer and a seemingly unattended baby cries through the night. They feast some more, although the next supper is overseen by an older couple, given a high place of honor before they're marched to a more literally high-up spot.

To explicate the result of the sequence that follows would be to ruin the shock of it (Then again, considering what happens and the way Aster presents it, there might be no way to undermine the shock), but the horror of the sequence builds well before any violence occurs. It's like a puzzle, in which all of the pieces (the two elders, a cliff, a mallet) are right in front of us, and as soon as we figure out what's going to happen, the suspense mounts.

The same, really, can be said of the entirety of the film, which makes us feel slightly uncomfortable at the almost too idyllic nature of this community, only to confirm those suspicions over and over again. The puzzle in the case of the overarching story, though, isn't the nature of the locals but the ways in which the visitors will respond, as well as how far some of them are willing to take their objective perspective of these rituals, their determination to escape, or their gradual understanding that, maybe, there is something worthwhile to the philosophies behind the community.

The core of the whole affair, though, is the relationship between Dani, whose grief is mostly important in how she's looking for understanding from someone (There are a few unnerving scenes in which the villagers engage in communal acts of empathy—wailing or howling or moaning along with someone else in anguish or pain or ecstasy), and Christian, whose ability to understand anything beyond his immediate wants and needs is extremely limited. There's a reckoning coming for everyone in Midsommar, and it's as cold, harsh, and unforgiving as the light of a northern sun.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products

Buy the DVD

Buy the Blu-ray