Entertaining, visually satisfying and perfectly acted. But...

Rating: 7/10 (15 September 2018)

Aster deserves an eleven out of ten: I'm so proud to see such a debut from a director of my generation. Thirty-somethings are coming, Hollywood. This new wave will bring back some euro-style deepness without fear of the audience, and the audience will reward them with warmth.
In Hereditary, there's a house above a house full of houses. There are puppets, masters of puppets and puppets that are masters of the masters of puppets. There are bonds, links, ugliness, motherhood, madness, gendericity, love, adolescence, pain, Satan. And Jesus? No, God never comes into play even if in the end Jesus is somehow mocked and, as a consequence, invoked. Actually, God and God's ministers and symbols are removed/replaced from the beginning of the movie: there is no hope, there is no way out of the hell for the characters.
Unfortunately, the viewer is constantly kept safe in his chair, far from the painful mess he witnesses. Why? Because of the gondry-esque, faerie production design and because of a little naïveté in the plot: for example, a couple of Wolff/Peter and Byrne/Steve reactions really break the suspension of disbelief, and you know who Dowd/Joan really is the exact second she appears. Furthermore, Dowd always phagocytize her characters in the name of an impeccable but tangible acting. Shapiro/Charlie is a pleasant surprise, and Collette/Annie is just perfect: a more jonze-esque than gondry-esque production design, a little more writing malice and a Kathy Bates in the role of Joan would have condemned the viewer to vulnerability, turning this fantastic effort into a masterpiece.
Heredity is entertaining, visually satisfying and perfectly acted. But... But I was not disturbed, I was not threatened, I was not surprised. Hereditary is a perfect exercise: I'm sure Aster will soon give us a great movie.