This film is brilliant for the most part but has a few issues to stop it from being perfect

Rating: 9/10 (19 July 2019)

Ari Aster's new film Midsommar is good, I recommend you all see it.
Aster's first feature Hereditary was one of my favourite films that I saw last year, I thought it was an extremely well shot and well orchestrated family drama that incorporated several horror elements along with a great soundtrack.
His new film Midsommar combines great cinematography with a good script, characters (somewhat) and amazing performances.
First of all, the cinematography: I really loved the opening of this film taking place in the snow with very dull, dark cinematography and imagery when placed in contrast to the beautiful sunny and warm cinematography that appears later in the film. This film carries on the extremely well framed shots that fit hand in hand Aster's character direction and blocking. During the first act of the film, there are a lot of shots that use reflections in the frame which I really liked, for example there is a great shot of Christian and Dani having a conversation with each other during which Christian is only ever seen in the reflection on a mirror in the left of the frame. I really liked this stylistic choice which really helped understand the distance and disconnection between these two characters and also feelings of regret and REFLECTION that the main characters would have been feeling during the sombre first act.
One of the best uses of the cinematography in the whole film is the reveal of the main conflict during the first act (which I will not spoil). The mix of the slow moving camera that snakes around like a third eye in the scene, the red flashing lights and the slowed down action really showed instantly that whatever the Dani and the spectator are about to find out is truly disturbing. And it was. There is an extremely powerful image in this reveal sequence that really stuck with me a long time after seeing the film, and it still does now. This image is later incorporated into the film in the second act during a surreal dream/hallucination sequence and heightens the disturbance very well as well as strengthen the character.
The warm and fuzzy cinematography with lots of perfectly framed wide shots of different coloured elements that all contrasted against the blue sky which features a lot in the frame was done very well and was the best way to tell this section of the story. There is a holy temple in the film, a bright orange pointy building which is beautifully shot in meticulously organised frames against the blue summer sky, almost how Wes Anderson would shoot it.
However, the cinematography in the film does conjure up a few minor complaints that I have about the film. The first comes with that disturbing image in the first act. When it is shown, the camera moves slowly up to it, creating a wonderful sense of dread, but then for some reason brushes past it after establishing what it is and focusing on something that is still relevant but not really worth showing. You'll know what I'm talking about when I see it. The second issue with the cinematography is just one single sequence, this is the moment where the group begin to understand that this festival has some sinister traditions to it. This horrific sequence which uses some great practical gore that would make Julia Ducournau jealous was strangely overexposed and whited out. Maybe this is a stylistic choice from Aster that I don't fully understand the meaning of or maybe it is a mistake (probably the former), but it bothered me slightly.
The second issue I have is with the sound. There's some really awful ADR in this film which just takes away from the otherwise great character dynamics. This mainly comes in the form of some extremely fake sounding sarcastic remark from Will Poulter's character, who sometimes isn't even shown to be in the scene in some cases. This was annoying and hurt the film quite a lot.
On the bright side, the main performance from Florence Pugh is really amazing, not even for a single second did I ever doubt her character or feel like I was watching an actor, I only saw the character which is almost as good as a performance can get. Pugh is surrounded with other great performances from Will Poulter, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper and Vilhelm Blomgren. Through the vast majority of the film the characters feel very real and make a lot of sense when held against their established motivations. The only complaint I have here is a decision that Will Poulter's character makes at around the midpoint of the film. I just thought it was kinda stupid and felt more like an excuse for something else to occur later in the film.
Another issue comes with the story and the way it all fits together and so. I just felt that the build up to what was going to happen was just a bit too much for what actually did happen. Maybe I'm not too easily disturbed or maybe it was A24's marketing that made me feel as if the third act of this film would be horrific and disturbing (which it sort of was but not to the extent that I expected).
All in all, I felt like this film was extremely well orchestrated by Aster with his previously displayed eye for great visual storytelling, imagery, reincorporation of subtle information and just visually pleasing images (that serve an actual purpose, take notes Mr Refn). The performances of the secondary cast were very good but Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor stole the show and their character dynamics were fantastic. All the characters were extremely believable apart from one or two moments like mentioned before. The only thing that really takes away from this film being a 10/10 was the really annoying and just plain bad ADR, the super build-up that never really paid off like I thought it would and that one sequence that was awkwardly overexposed and whited out.
I highly recommend this film and I'll give it a 9/10 (4.5 stars).