Midsommar (2019) is a big disappointment #wickerman #horror #movies
Midsommar (2019) is a new release directed by Ari Aster of Hereditary fame, and it disappoints. This movie’s about a group of PhD students who visit a Swedish commune complete with Pagan cult May-pole-worshipping weirdos. Yep, it’s the Wicker Man all over again. Midsommar is a remake or a 21st century “re-imagining” of The Wicker Man’s Pagan cult concept, however you want to say it. In my opinion, that’s not a good thing. Some people disagree, but Aster does a copy and paste job using the best elements from The Wicker Man, like the fish-out-water characters, the ritualistic dancing, the weird leaders, human sacrifice, and plenty more. It’s basically the same movie, except Midsommar has MORE of those weird concepts, plus there’s thematic threads about dysfunctional relationships and a true fall into insanity.
Main characters Dani and Christian are played by Florence Pugh and Jack Raynor, who do a good job with what they’re given, and they’re given quite a bit. There’s endless amounts of banter and uncomfortable situations, as they set up the main conceit in the movie, the loveless relationship between Christian and Dani. At the beginning, Christian is contemplating how to get out of his annoying relationship, and it certainly seems dysfunctional. Dani appears extremely obsessive-compulsive, whining to her friend about her fears of being too needy in her relationship with Christian. The relationship is going nowhere fast.
I think the actual problem with this movie is the introduction, which has Dani’s bi-polar sister commit suicide and kill their parents too. This event actually cements the relationship status between Christian and Dani, because he can’t dump her now, not at the lowest point in her life, and he becomes increasingly frustrated. They could have trimmed this introduction and accomplished the same thing, though I’m not sure what Aster was going for, because there’s no real payoff in the end. Why is it in the movie? It only ends up putting Dani in a state of perpetual grief. Why? To be more susceptible to the cult? Hell if I know. She joins Christian’s PhD group on their trip to Sweden to study a commune of weirdos, but none of them really like her joining their trip, so she’s an outsider right from the start. Her mental state gets worse and worse, until she finally breaks and loses it, which actually takes over two hours to see.
Yep, over two hours of talking and weird cult stuff. The Wicker Man is a crisp 88 minutes long, chalk full of the same weirdo stuff, but Aster feels the need to throw in more of it to show us how weird these people are, I guess. There’s bizarre paintings and carvings on everything, there’s sex rituals with full frontal nudity, dance competitions, and we get all of it as if we’re watching an extended version. There’s no cuts or fade outs in this one. An old lady jumps off a cliff, and we see her hit a rock below. We see her face explode in plastic bones and ruby red syrup. The weird stuff escalates until finally the characters are so caught up in it, they actually lose control of their own fate, and participation in the plot. They’re not defiant to the end as the officer was in The Wicker Man, nope they’re too drugged out to do much about anything and the last ten minutes is just a parade of insanity and fire and death. Then we get a weird last shot and then it’s over, which leaves the majority dumbfounded, no doubt.
Overall, this is an average cut-and-paste movie. I think The Wicker Man from 1973 is more effective, but with another movie out there with almost exactly the same story, it’s tough to recommend a longer and more tedious version. I saw the plot developments coming a mile away because it’s all been done before (in the same way), so I expected more from Ari Aster, the master of plot tension. This movie isn’t tense. It’s long. It drags on. I get it. The Swedes are weird. There’s a cult and they’re pagans. Yeah, we know, let’s go. I was waiting for the movie to get to something “else”, but it never did. It plays with grief and relationships but those themes don’t pay off. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE weird crap like in The Shining but this isn’t the same thing. Aster didn’t seem like the copy-and-paste or tribute type but I guess I was wrong.
