Ari Aster made waves with his 2018 debut feature Hereditary – a horror film which expertly mixed together a raw look at one family’s struggle to hold together following tragedy with a mystery involving a strange cult with closer ties to the family and their history than they think. Featuring a criminally underrated performance from Toni Collette (one of the best of the year) and with a distinct visual style, Hereditary brought new meaning to the term creepy; a slow burn build that ratcheted up the tension to breaking point before a chaotic and violent third act. It’s fair to say that expectations were high for the director’s follow-up Midsommar and it doesn’t disappoint for the most part; with another powerhouse performance from a female lead in Florence Pugh, an engrossing central mystery and somehow more tension than his previous film at times. At a beefy two and a half hours, the film sometimes gets lost on its way to the lackluster conclusion, made all the more frustrating by the excellent, inventive cinema which precede it.
Midsommar finds Aster in familiar territory, with Dani (Florence Pugh) recently learning of a great tragedy in her life, leaving her with no one to lean on other than her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor); a well meaning but pretty unlikeable guy who complains to his friends about the lengths he goes to keep Dani happy whilst subsequently forgetting her birthday, you know: good boyfriend problems. Dani’s current predicament leaves Christian with little choice other than to invite her on an upcoming boys trip to Sweden to visit his exchange student friend Pelle’s (Vilhelm Blomgren) secluded farm commune, along with their friends Mark (Will Poulter) and Josh (William Jackson Harper), who is writing his thesis on the Midsummer celebrations across Europe. The group are welcomed with open arms into the tight knit community, offered drugs, food and music, and things seem completely idyllic until the midsummer festivities begin, a series of bizarre and deadly rituals which threaten to tear the bonds of the group apart and perhaps the odd face or two. Think The Sound of Music meets The Hills have Eyes.
Much was made of the decision to stage almost the entire film during the day, a time generally reserved in horror films for easing audiences into the scares and setting up events that will pay off in the terrifying night. Aster once again employs the tension and atmosphere that he used so brilliantly on Hereditary to equally effective results: Midsommar is a film which breaks you down on a mental level. You never feel completely comfortable watching the events unfolding on screen, even when it’s something as innocuous as dancing, and there’s always a sense that something is off about this seemingly perfect community – which of course there is. Ultimately, however, the daylight setting is something of a double edged sword, instilling that sense of constant dread whilst also robbing the proceedings of much of their horror without the cover of night. Nothing is ever really scary and even when things start to truly go south it’s all just extremely uncomfortable to watch more than anything. Where Hereditary thrived on its use of darkness, hiding things in the black space until your eyes adjusted and your brain registered what it was seeing, Midsommar shows you everything, relying on the unsettling friendliness of the locals and the audiences knowledge that something has to go wrong at some point to keep you on your toes. It works well enough to keep you guessing about the central mystery, but it means that when all the secrets are exposed there isn’t much room to scare or surprise you anymore – you’re simply seeing the ride through to the end.
That’s not to say that Midsommar is lacking in the visual department; it’s all shot stunningly, with the rolling fields and hills of Sweden serving as a gorgeous backdrop for the horrors that unfold, giving the film an almost other worldly feel. Combine that with Aster’s bag of impressive camera tricks – from a spinning, vertigo inducing shot of the road foreshadowing the madness to come to a wave effect that plays on the environment surrounding the village when our characters are under the influence of drugs – and it all serves to immerse you in the confined environment, testing your stamina for just how much of the craziness you can endure before you break. That craziness is amplified by the epic runtime of the film, a somewhat necessary side effect to truly break the audience, there are nevertheless some plot elements that feel almost shoehorned in to create more conflict where it isn’t necessary. An argument later on in the film which acts to further divide the main group feels trivial when you take into account the events that they have seen and at a certain point the argument of “let’s embrace the local culture” should go out the window when the body count starts rising. These issues fall away though because of how good a job Aster does in getting you invested in the central mystery, and regardless of how you feel about the ending, the ride to it is engrossing and tense.
Without a doubt the strongest part of Midsommar lies in the lead performance of Florence Pugh as the damaged Dani. From the outset she’s put up against terrible circumstances and her mental state is fragile before she even arrives in Sweden. Pugh plays the character’s struggle to find support brilliantly, with a desperate desire to keep hold of Christian regardless of the way he treats her morphing into realisation and a search for acceptance elsewhere. Pugh is always up to the tasks given to her by the script – whether it’s shock at the events happening around her or exhaustion from the mental strain of resisting the cult she finds herself encircled by and the haunting events from her past constantly creeping their way into her brain. Surrounding her is a solid supporting cast, made up of both American and Swedish actors who all work brilliantly to assist Dani’s descent into madness. Jack Reynor plays the boyfriend archetype on multiple levels; Christian is acutely aware the way he is treating Dani is wrong and yet he persists, and the interactions with his friends highlight just how self-centered the character is, ultimately leading to some pretty shocking events in the final act. Reynor is tasked with quite a bit of physical acting towards the conclusion – things that would be difficult for a veteran actor to deal with – and he pulls it off wonderfully, really selling the fall of Christian. Rounding out the group is Will Poulter who brings a surprising amount of comedy to the proceedings, serving to defuse some of the ever building tension, and Vilhelm Blomgren as Pelle, a character who’s motives you’re never quite sure about, who acts almost as the narrator, guiding our characters through the festivities and the horrors they face.
Midsommar is another triumph for Ari Aster, who continues to prove himself a master of tense, atmospheric horror. Whilst falling slightly short of Hereditary in terms of its story and scares, it is nevertheless a creepy, intriguing mystery anchored by a haunting lead performance from Florence Pugh. The depth to the story and the sheer number of small details and easter eggs warrant many repeat viewings, made all the more easier by the level of craftsmanship on display visually. If Aster wants to keep making cult horror films for years to come you’ll be hard pressed to find someone with a single complaint, but with talent like this it won’t be long before he’s swinging in the majors and I can’t wait to see what kind of spine tingling carnage the man can deliver with a studio budget behind him.
Midsommarstars Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, William Jackson Harper and Vilhelm Blomgren – In cinemas now.