Movies the Academy ignored Vol.1: Midsommar.

When Hereditary was released in 2018 everyone fell in love with both Ari Aster and Toni Collete, who is one of the best actresses nowadays. Hereditary was Aster´s first long movie, and there´s no way any movie could have made a better debut than this one! Midsommar is his second movie, after the BRILLIANT Hereditary, and I had HUGE expectations when I went to see this movie in theatres last summer.

The movie is about a girl who has some serious emotional issues, caused by a huge and terrible family drama, called Dani, portrayed by Florence Pugh, which probably makes the best female performance of the year. Her boyfriend who is portrayed by Jack Reynor (who was in Sing Street) is going on a trip with his friends to Sweden to celebrate a festivity called Midsommar that is only celebrated every 90 years, and as Dani is emotionally broken and going through a very hard time, even though their relationship is kind of almost over, he invites her on the trip. So, once they go to the village where Midsommar is being held and once they spend some time in there they realize how bizarre and dangerous that festivity is, and especially the people who celebrate it.

The best thing in the movie is definitely Pugh´s acting, which is some of the best performances I´ve ever seen, she shows emotions in a very real and hard to watch at times way, I have to say that Midsommar really made me feel anxious and scared during the whole movie, but the most shocking and devastating scenes were not the ones which had graphic violence but the ones that showed Dani´s breakdowns, especially the one towards the end in which she starts crying and the girls in the cult start to shout and cry with her. Also, her facial expression on the last scene gave me chills.

Another really good thing about the movie is the script and the whole story, about this cult who celebrates a festivity only every 90 years and are super creepy. The movie has some really graphic and weird scenes which were really wild, and that makes it a very different and unique movie, at least for me. I remember the sensation when I got out of the theatre and realized that I had never seen never something like that, and I spent the whole night and the whole next day thinking about the movie, Hereditary also had me really impressed and scared but not as much as Midsommar. So, I guess Ari Aster is just a genius, that makes disturbing, graphic, weird and scary movies with brilliant performances.

The original score of the movie was really thrilling and scary. The cinematography was also very bizarre, as horror movies have most of the times a dark color pallet, this movie´s color pallet is just bright colors.

As I´ve previously said the movie is really graphic and has some really gore scenes, and also very weird and maybe disturbing for some people scenes, so I guess it´s not a movie all audiences will enjoy, definitely not suitable for kids!!

But if you are a horror movie lover and you enjoyed Hereditary, or you are just looking for a not so typical movie, I totally and absolutely recommend Midsommar.

8.9/10.

The Oscar nominations I think this movie totally deserved and didn´t get because the Academy likes to bully horror movies are:

Best Picture.

Best Actress in a leading role (Florence Pugh)

Best cinematography.

Best directing.

Best music (original score)

Best Writing (original screenplay)