Review of Midsommar (2019) by Garmonbozia — 02 Aug 2019

Another film from Ari Aster which I didn't like that much. The only thing that works in this movie is the visual part. The pagan village looks beautiful and is created with the attention to detail. The music, dances and singing are also great.

The horror part is grotesque to the point of only laughable. People laughed at the absurdity of the scenes during my screening. Tonally this movie sucks. It tries to be a pointless ironic horror entertainment, psychological drama and initiate deep philosophical conversations - all in one.

It achieves only the first goal - pointless entertainment. "Midsommar" is too ridiculous to start a more serious conversation about anything. And I think Ari Aster tried to say here something about ego/individuality culture vs collective culture.

Criticise and ridicule organised religion and comfort people find in rituals and false ideas of belonging to "the family". Something about adult children subconsciously wanting the death of theirs parents as a form of liberation.

But all those ideas fall flat because the plot of this movie is so ridiculous that it doesn't encourage that kind of discussion. It is just to weak of a movie even on the superficial level to start a conversation about deeper meanings.

I also don't understand the praise that Florence Pugh receives for her performance in this movie. Yes, at the beginning she's great, but with the progression of the plot, her character becomes less and less real or interesting.

All the characters in this movie act like ideas of people and not real people. I've read reviews which said that the main character's boyfriend is a jerk. Well, Dani also was very unlikable (all the characters in the movie were).

She was very needy and she was as toxic in their relationship as her boyfriend. If it comes to her psychological trauma I think the director forget to show us what was her family like. That would perhaps create the ground for some kind of pay off in the finale and the ideas behind her sister's decision.

"Midsommar" looks beautiful at times, but the plot is too weak, ridicules and laughable to provoke viewers to dive deeper. Very shallow and pointless movie. As an entertainment is a pointless B-movie.

And it's not that original. It's derivative of Robert Eggers' "The Witch", Ari's own first movie "Hereditary", and many more. Only the superficial folk aspect of it is kinda new and interesting.

Very pretentious artsy-farsty movie. I say "no" to Ari Aster and "Yes" to Robert Eggers. From those two Eggers is a far more focused director.