Review: Midsommar | 3 ½ out of 4 Stars | Rated R

Midsommar |   3 ½  out 4 Stars | Rated R

By Kyle Osborne

Once or twice a year, when a movie ends and the credits roll, you find yourself saying, “Holy crap! What the hell was that?” It’s when a director swings for the fences and makes something that isn’t like the other 300 films in a given year. It’s the kind of movie, never perfect, that usually makes it to a year-end Top 10 list.

Director/Writer Ari Aster, hot on the heels of his debut feature Hereditary, proves that he had more than one good movie in him with Midsommar, a tense and, frankly, gory thriller that slow builds to a burning climax, sometimes throwing a sly wink at you along the way.

It starts with a young American couple, Dani and Christian (Florence Pugh and Jack  Reynor)who are possibly close to breaking up without actually saying so out-loud. Dani’s younger sister is sometimes suicidal and possibly an unwell drama queen whose dependency on big sister is also taking a toll on the couple’s peace of mind.

Christian’s college cohorts are not so fond of the needy girlfriend either. They plan on a trip to Sweden, just the guys, to drink beer and take shrooms and celebrate some kind of weird midsummer festival during the time of year when the sun never sets. In other words, Aster is going to freak you out without ever really taking you into the dark—it’s a neat trick that he pulls off.

I am overly cautious when it comes to plot points, so without spoiling anything, I’ll just say this:

Dani ends up inviting herself to go on this trip with the boys, and they can’t exactly tell her she isn’t welcome because something traumatic has happened in her life. I mean, you can’t just leave her by herself.

So, when the couple and their pals arrive in a remote village in northern Sweden, there’s already palpable tension. And that’s just the set up. The small group of Swedes who are celebrating this once in a lifetime event are friendly and peaceful, but creepily cultish. It’s communal living—everyone sleeps in the same building without walls, everyone eats together at a long table, and they go through some absolutely f*cked up rituals that are shocking and graphic…and very cool, speaking cinematically. The cast are uniformly good, but English actress Florence Pugh is magical, from the first moments in the film when she is alone in the frame, talking on the phone, to the last frame when she tells us everything with just her eyes.

If you must know a little more, please check out the official trailer below. I’ll just say that the “holy crap”  moment I had at the film’s conclusion morphed into genuine admiration for an imperfect movie that, I guarantee you, will be the only one of its kind this year. And that alone is worth a lot.

Rated R (for disturbing ritualistic violence and grisly images, strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and language)

Kyle Osborne