Film Review: Hereditary
The weather was cool, the sky low and grey. So what's a girl to do? I took myself to see a scary movie, a matinee on a rainy day, like any self-respecting movie fan. And not just any scary movie. Hereditary, written and directed by Ari Aster, is the latest offering from A24 studios in an exciting sub-genre trend I like to call 'haute horror'. I had the theater to myself, I had my popcorn, I was ready.
And make no mistake, this summer's big horror flick, the darling of Sundance, has all the haute horror tropes audiences (including me!) have come to expect and critics froth over. Slow-pacing, limited jump scares, little CGI, more character development, suspense over gore, A list actors... it's all here.
But here's the thing, it's not enough.
Just because you have all the ingredients doesn't mean you bake a great cake, and this film is nothing if not half-baked. And what's worse, it wastes talents like Toni Collette, Anne Dowd (Aunt Lydia for The Handmaid's Tale fans), Gabriel Byrne and the young glottal-stopping young actress, Milly Shapiro (for an explanation and far superior cinematic use of the glottal stop, please click the Aaron Sorkin cameo appearance in The Social Network).
Their strong performances can not save the narrative, which is a convoluted mess. Perhaps if we were given more backstory on this family, we would be more invested. A flash of a smile, a joke, an endearing nickname would have gone a long way here (I'm thinking of the very effective use of Harvest Moon in A Quiet Place). Hereditary is so gorgeous, with its beautiful craftsman house and carefully created palette, and the drama so carefully wrought, that you hang in there, until the wheels really do come off the cart in the third act. I don't want to reveal any spoilers, but I have a lot of questions...
The film inexplicably ends with Judy Collins' upbeat “Both Sides Now” which is the perfect ending, as it make absolutely no sense. Enjoy this musical interlude and skip Hereditary (unless of course you have 2 extra hours, you find plot holes endearing and pretension is your bread and butter).
