Riveting

Rating: 10/10 (7 March 2020)

This movie is just brilliant. There are so many complex layers to what is going on here - at face value you could think of it as a trippy, bizarre adult fairy tale. But when you dig deeper, you'll find a lot more under the surface.
I initially thought the opening was an emotional ploy to help us empathize with Dani, but now I see it is the thesis of the entire movie. Ari Aster himself said it was an "operatic break up movie" and that is a perfect description. Through her personal tragedies, Dani finds meaning and community again - she finds people to hold her, to cry with her - things she should have had all along.
The cult setting is clever - it's ritualistic shock and gore at every step, seeming to underline Dani's heightened sense of foreboding and horror and her struggle to process the tragedy with her family and with Christian. But by the end of the movie, Dani embraces the ritualized gore and sees it's necessary for moving on (in more than just one sense). The cult has shown her how to cope and given her a community to do so. Their tragedies are planned and measured; they have responsibility for their own traumas. It's pure art.
It's a raw, sometimes uncomfortable roller coaster ride that gives you plenty to chew on. 10/10