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A family is beset by unexplained supernatural phenomena following the death of its grandmother.
This review contains unmarked spoilers.
There's a scene early on in Hereditary set in an English class where the teacher asks if a tragedy is more or less tragic if nothing can be done to avoid it. One student bluntly says "less". Another one not only answers "more" but elaborates on how the sadness of a tragedy is only compounded if people keep trying and failing to avoid it. The scene (and the film's most overt addressing of the idea) concludes, but not without showing how all this is lost on Peter (Alex Wolff), the unlucky chump who is about to start his own inexorable journey through hell - and he's more focused on organising a lunchtime weed session. While most of the stuff I noticed on a second viewing of Hereditary amounted to little more than picking up on bits of foreshadowing here and there, this particular moment was what stood out the most, if only because I questioned whether the film ultimately ended up taking a firm stance on this either/or question or if it left viewers to draw their own conclusions. The plot certainly weaves a sense of inevitability into its tale of Annie (Toni Collette) coming to terms with her mother's recent death and gradually realising how the lingering traumas said mother left behind can only now be read as portents of something even more nefarious than ordinary parental abuse, but whether or not that translates into a film that rewards on either a first or a second viewing is still debatable.
While it's easy enough to acknowledge the more tangibly strong elements of Hereditary - Collette's remarkably committed performance, the sparing use of conventional horror tactics in favour of delivering a slow-burn story that plays more like a standard drama about living with grief than anything else, reasonably effective deployment of said tactics - at the end I still have trouble determining whether or not these elements all build up to a satisfactory whole. This much is reflected in its nominally intense and revelatory conclusion, which ends in a manner that again brings up the question as to whether or not all the suffering and death and futile attempts to prevent this particularly terrible finale are rendered more or less tragic because of its sheer inevitability. It's easy enough to interpret what happens to Peter as an especially dark and twisted "happy" ending as the trauma and grief that has plagued the family for generations (and especially throughout the course of this film) is finally washed away, yet this does not come across as an altogether satisfying or resonant ending - the lasting impression it leaves barely goes beyond "oh, okay then". While there's something to be said for how Hereditary's fixation on various facets of death makes for fairly discomforting viewing, that's only effective up to a point and the moments where it leans into the horror side of things are just as liable to work against such discomforting thematic material as for it.
#4 - Hereditary
Ari Aster, 2018
Ari Aster, 2018
A family is beset by unexplained supernatural phenomena following the death of its grandmother.
This review contains unmarked spoilers.
There's a scene early on in Hereditary set in an English class where the teacher asks if a tragedy is more or less tragic if nothing can be done to avoid it. One student bluntly says "less". Another one not only answers "more" but elaborates on how the sadness of a tragedy is only compounded if people keep trying and failing to avoid it. The scene (and the film's most overt addressing of the idea) concludes, but not without showing how all this is lost on Peter (Alex Wolff), the unlucky chump who is about to start his own inexorable journey through hell - and he's more focused on organising a lunchtime weed session. While most of the stuff I noticed on a second viewing of Hereditary amounted to little more than picking up on bits of foreshadowing here and there, this particular moment was what stood out the most, if only because I questioned whether the film ultimately ended up taking a firm stance on this either/or question or if it left viewers to draw their own conclusions. The plot certainly weaves a sense of inevitability into its tale of Annie (Toni Collette) coming to terms with her mother's recent death and gradually realising how the lingering traumas said mother left behind can only now be read as portents of something even more nefarious than ordinary parental abuse, but whether or not that translates into a film that rewards on either a first or a second viewing is still debatable.
While it's easy enough to acknowledge the more tangibly strong elements of Hereditary - Collette's remarkably committed performance, the sparing use of conventional horror tactics in favour of delivering a slow-burn story that plays more like a standard drama about living with grief than anything else, reasonably effective deployment of said tactics - at the end I still have trouble determining whether or not these elements all build up to a satisfactory whole. This much is reflected in its nominally intense and revelatory conclusion, which ends in a manner that again brings up the question as to whether or not all the suffering and death and futile attempts to prevent this particularly terrible finale are rendered more or less tragic because of its sheer inevitability. It's easy enough to interpret what happens to Peter as an especially dark and twisted "happy" ending as the trauma and grief that has plagued the family for generations (and especially throughout the course of this film) is finally washed away, yet this does not come across as an altogether satisfying or resonant ending - the lasting impression it leaves barely goes beyond "oh, okay then". While there's something to be said for how Hereditary's fixation on various facets of death makes for fairly discomforting viewing, that's only effective up to a point and the moments where it leans into the horror side of things are just as liable to work against such discomforting thematic material as for it.