Midsommar

Department of Nonsensical Misogyny.

You would think that chaos is the point of horror. But the best horror movies stay in control of their nightmares. Writer-director Ari Aster has a knack for starting his movies tightly but he tends to devolve to grotesque horror non-sequiturs that spin out of control.

In Midsommar, the excellent Florence Pugh plays Dani, a young woman who is in a dying relationship with her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor), and who suffers an unspeakable family trauma. In the first third of the movie the horror is mundane —as in a dreadful relationship that trudges along painfully despite the fact that it is clearly unsatisfying for both parties. Dani is needy and clingy and Christian feels too guilty and tries too hard to appease her, and this is before tragedy strikes her. Aster nails the tortured dynamics and language of a codependent relationship. Dani and Christian never say what they really feel, endlessly pretending to try to please the other at the expense of their own needs. This is a horror in itself. But Dani seems to be a walking guilt trip. Before her terrible loss, Christian and his male buddies resent her because she exerts too much influence on him. After her tragedy, they cannot fight her.

Christian and his pals are anthropology students and one of them, Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren), invites them to witness the midsummer rites in the Swedish commune where he grew up. It’s supposed to be a guys only trip but Dani ends up coming along because no one has the balls to tell her she’s not wanted. As they say…