Ian’s review published on Letterboxd:
66/100
”Does he feel like home to you?”
It seemed only natural to me that after watching Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man that my next horror film be Ari Aster’s Midsommar; especially that nowadays these are probably the most well known and popular “folk horror” films and it’s early noticeable at how much Aster had taken influence from the previous film, but what I think makes this really good is how much Aster fills the entire film with so much eeriness. Yes, they both have an eeriness to them, but with this you could feel it much more prominent in the whole film.
Much to my liking of the film, the way in which Florence Pugh’s character goes though each and every emotion throughout the entire film is what makes this so special. Now granted that gives a lot of credit to her performance - which is spectacular in its own right - but I also want to give credit to the ability of Ari Aster’s screenwriting here because without his depth of creating such an atmosphere for Pugh to inhabit, I don’t think the film would’ve worked nearly as well. The atmosphere is strictly one of the finest parts of the film and if anything, one of the main reasons this should be included on your watchlist.
The one thing that I feel like really brings this down for me is how much I found Aster’s ability to hold onto a scene, to unfortunately ruin the scene for me. I was talking to a friend and I was saying how as soon as something was unsettling and making me uncomfortable, Aster seemed to keep let it linger and while my friend (and many others) have described and said how much they loved that, I just didn’t. I found myself becoming much more “used” to it and it sort of lost its effect on me. I’m not sure if I reacted to it just poorly, but with so much of the film relaying on lingering effects, especially with Pugh’s character, the entire film did feel a little off to me.
I liked it! Maybe my expectations were slightly high and I mean given my immense love I have for anything and everything Florence Pugh does, I figured I couldn’t really hate it and I guess I was right. I love the beginning and the ending and I think it’s probably the strongest aspect of the entire film is how well Ari Aster is able to fully capture your attention in a quick sweep; it’s just how long he does it that keeps my feelings a little down. Midsommar is a solid horror flick and I think given how much success this has, I hope we get more folk horror like this in the future.
