Ari Aster's Midsommar (2019)

[kickass]

Ohhhhh this is going to be a trip to watch in theatres!

 

[kickass]

My takeaway from the script: at first I thought it was pretty generic and all too familiar. I understand it’s an early version and some things may have been changed (I believe some of the character names on IMDB are different, so I can only guess).

And I agree that at first this doesn’t pack the kind of nuances and detail that Hereditary does.......until I re-read the script a second time. It became much clearer to me then (and I imagine it will be a lot more obvious once it’s plastered on the screen for us to visually see).......but Ari at first said this movie is about a relationship gone wrong, or a “bad breakup”.

Spoiler

And it truly is; this film is just as much about the exhausting toll of a relationship as it is about a crazy Swedish cult. In fact, as Christian and Dani’s relationship grows more bitter and begins to slowly fall a part, it’s juxtaposed with all the weird **** that’s going on with the festival: all the rituals and the different tasks given to the men and woman, and the mythos accompanying it......

I feel I’ll understand more of this once I can visually see it on display myself in order to connect the dots. But Ari is meticulously careful with what he puts in his scripts/movies and it’s all for a greater purpose.

 

[Doctor Jones]

Wow, I got Wicker Man vibes watching this!

Spoiler

 

[Kane52630]

 

[C Prometheus]

My takeaway from the script: at first I thought it was pretty generic and all too familiar. I understand it’s an early version and some things may have been changed (I believe some of the character names on IMDB are different, so I can only guess).

And I agree that at first this doesn’t pack the kind of nuances and detail that Hereditary does.......until I re-read the script a second time. It became much clearer to me then (and I imagine it will be a lot more obvious once it’s plastered on the screen for us to visually see).......but Ari at first said this movie is about a relationship gone wrong, or a “bad breakup”.

Spoiler

And it truly is; this film is just as much about the exhausting toll of a relationship as it is about a crazy Swedish cult. In fact, as Christian and Dani’s relationship grows more bitter and begins to slowly fall a part, it’s juxtaposed with all the weird **** that’s going on with the festival: all the rituals and the different tasks given to the men and woman, and the mythos accompanying it......

I feel I’ll understand more of this once I can visually see it on display myself in order to connect the dots. But Ari is meticulously careful with what he puts in his scripts/movies and it’s all for a greater purpose.

I agree with this post. The leaked script is a grower IMO.

Spoiler

I actually found it interesting and more than a little unnerving that Pelle was the only other major character in the script aside from Dani that I sympathized with.

Granted, I get Christian's plight at the start of the story in being stuck in a relationship he doesn't want to be in but feels compelled to stay in because of unusual circumstances... but his arc over the course of the story just makes him progressively less and less sympathetic. Not to mention, Josh and Mark are both rather one-noted jerks, at least in the leaked draft of the script.

That said, the big ending in this script is utterly nightmarish. I'm both eager and mortified to see how Ari brings that entire sequence to life, considering how visually detailed and precise that part of the script is.

I definitely think the quality of Midsommar overall and how audiences ultimately respond to it is going to come down to the directing, acting and editing. I could genuinely see this film playing out in several different ways in theaters for audiences.

 

[harlequinade]

Oh I hated Christian since the very beginning I liked the others but him....ew! Awful guy, so weak too

 

[Deck Rickard]

 

[Kane52630]

God I hope this movie ends like this

 

[ThePowerCosmic]

Makes me wonder how Disney is going to handle the Hunchback when they get around to it. Will they go as deformed as this person or pull it back a bit? If anything, Ari Aster knows how to do deformed people.

 

[Pennywise]

Midsommar Will Be ‘a Wizard of Oz for Perverts,’ Says Director Ari Aster

Thanks to that spooky but sparse trailer, we know only a few details about Aster’s follow-up: It’s “Scandinavian folk horror” focusing on a “pagan cult”; it stars Florence Pugh and Will Poulter; and it involves a bear with exposed intestines. So when Vulture caught up with Aster on the red carpet at last night’s Metrograph Anniversary Party, we asked him for more information.

“It’s a breakup movie, in the same way that Hereditary is a family tragedy,” Aster shared. “It’s less overtly a horror movie, but it’s still working in that same space. It’s very macabre. But people shouldn’t go in expecting Hereditary.” When asked what he’d liken Midsommar to, if not Hereditary, Aster paused for a full minute. “Is it your Mamma Mia?” we asked. “Yeah, sure, I’d say so,” he laughed. “It’s a Wizard of Oz for perverts.”

 

[James.B]

Ari Aster’s ‘Midsommar’ Moves To Midsummer – CinemaCon

Ari Aster’s follow-up movie to Hereditary, Midsommar from A24, is moving up from its Aug. 9 release date to the Independence Day frame of July 3, which has been a prime counter-programming launch pad for horror pics, i.e. last year’s The First Purge ($69.4M) and 2016’s The Purge: Election Year ($79.2M).

 

[Boom]

Cool beans.

 

[harlequinade]

YEY!

 

[ThePowerCosmic]

July 4th is going to Far From Home for me, but I'll definitely be watching Midsommar that weekend.

 

[Luigi]

Smart move. It would have been swallowed up by a crowded August slate.

 

[harlequinade]

 

[Boom]

 

[Sawyer]

Allergy season is a *****.

 

[Boom]

That has legit been me for six months.

 

[harlequinade]

So the trailer is today? OMG please

 

[James.B]

 

[terry78]

Well....that's something. The bright nature of how it's shot really is gonna juxtapose how horrifying it probably is.

 

[MOVIELORD101]

All that's missing from that trailer is weaponized bees:

 

[harlequinade]

 

[Closerframe]

The trailer made me feel less confident in this being better than the horrible script that was released in 2017. The characters appear to be just as two-dimensional as the script outlined and the escalation of events that unfold over the course of the film seem like pure shock bait instead of being genuinely disturbing like Hereditary.