Hereditary
I can’t think of very many movies that make me genuinely gasp at something they do. I don’t really have much of a visceral, physical (or audible) reaction to much that goes on in films, at this point. So, when I mention that Ari Aster’s “Hereditary” not only made me gasp, but hold my hand by my still open mouth for a good minute or two at one point in the film, you’ll understand that this film had moments of legitimate power and weight for me. I was glued to the screen for the rest of the film’s two hours after that, and even the end left me more than a little flabbergasted at what Aster did, and how he did it.
The film begins with a typed obituary for Ellen Leigh over black screen. Ellen is the mother of Annie Graham (Toni Collette), and the grandmother of Peter (Alex Wolff) and Charlie (Milly Shapiro), and she is never seen alive on-screen. At her funeral, Annie, a miniature artist preparing for a gallery showing, gives a eulogy that points to Ellen’s secretive nature, and fraught tension within the family. Afterwards, the family- which includes Annie’s husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne)- try and continue on with life, but a dark cloud seems to hover over the family, as well as strange occurrences around Annie and Charlie. It’s not long before the family is plunged further into grief, and the discord that existed in the family before begins to boil over with supernatural undertones.
As I write this review, I decide to go to IMDB.com to see what else Ari Aster had made, and sure enough, I actually saw an earlier short film of his (reviewed on this site) called “The Strange Thing About the Johnsons,” and I’m not going to lie- I was both astonished that not only did I forget his name from that earlier film (which I thought was fantastic), but also thinking he has some serious family shit to work out, and I have to say, I’m intrigued by the ways he’s doing so on film. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before with him- it’s not like “Johnsons” is a short film you forget, all of the sudden- but holy shit, is it fascinating watching one director approach ideas of familial tensions from two very different directions. I think “Hereditary” is the superior film, but both are well worth viewing, if his new film leads you to seeing his older work. Just don’t expect to feel good watching either one of them.
A couple of thoughts/films were bouncing around in my head while watching “Hereditary.” The first thought was that, I can only imagine, the gut punch reaction this film delivered to me watching it is probably how people thought about Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” back in 1980, as neither film plays it safe, or obvious, with how they break the family they’re putting through the wringer down, and certainly, “Hereditary” has been as divisive as Kubrick’s film was, at the time. The second thought I had in mind was how much I was reminded of Darren Aronofsky’s insane “mother!” last year watching this film, and especially, the tour de force performance Collette delivers as Annie here. “mother!” put us into the head of a person going through deep emotional trauma and anxiety in a way few films have before, and “Hereditary” does something similar, but in a different way. Annie loses herself in her miniatures, and the tactile detail of her work is rich and engrossing. It also throws us off-balance in the way Aster uses them to set a scene, or give us perspective on a scene, or something that is about to happen. When we listen to her speak about her mother, we get the idea that something was uncomfortable, hiding just beneath the surface of their relationship. We get a hint of it when she is going through her mother’s belongings, and finds a book on spiritualism, as well as, when she goes to a group for people grieving, and just out pours her confessional about her mother’s life, including how she wanted to keep Peter from her, while- when Charlie was born- she ended up letting her mother care for her. This tension in how she raised her kids, and how she let her mother near them (or not) is something that comes into play as the film unfolds, and another member of the group, Joan (Ann Dowd), finds Annie to share a spiritual experience that may, forever, open Annie’s mind to an understanding of life and death that she never would have imagined before.
I’m dancing around a whole lot of the plot here, and even though the film has been out for a month at the time I am writing this, I don’t want to reveal too much about the film because, like with “mother!” for me last year, one of the most exciting things about watching it was knowing as little as I did know about it going into it. I owe Aster and his collaborators that while they take us into the heart of darkness for one family.
A few more points to bring up here:
-I’m trying to remember the last time I saw Gabriel Byrne in a movie, but it was wonderful having him here as Annie’s husband. He projects a stoic stability that is important to the film as things begin to implode for his family, and he’s really good here as the film seems to, increasingly, pit Steve against Annie.
-The trailers shrewdly paint the film as Collette dealing with another disturbed child, a la “The Sixth Sense.” Oh, this film is so much deeper than that.
-Wolff and Shapiro are both haunting as the kids, in different ways. Peter makes choices, at one point, that impact both characters, and the rest of the film vibrates off of those choices in powerful ways.
-The cinematography by Pawel Pogorzelski and music by Colin Stetson rattle us and set the stage for a family drama that will shake us to the bone.
-I don’t know if I’ll get to it again in theatres, but I will definitely be adding this to my horror collection when it hits home media. Like “mother!,” like “The Shining,” and like A24’s “The Witch,” it has images and ideas that I’m unlikely to erase from my memory anytime soon, and I want to experience them again sooner rather than later.
