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Hereditary

(Ari Aster)




I try my best not to go into a movie with expectations, but when a film garners rave reviews for being terrifying, unnerving and one of the year's best films, it's hard to not get somewhat excited. Nevertheless, I tampered my expectations and went in with an open mind. Hereditary lives up to those claims in my book while managing to take a look at deep depression when someone loses a loved one.

Annie has just lost her mother. Their relationship wasn't perfect and her mother kept some secrets, but she still feels remorse. Those secrets begin to manifest is strange ways, making Annie go a little crazy. Tragedy has struck her family her entire life and her current family doesn't know if she's just losing her mind or if there are more sinister forces at work.

It's hard to give a quick synopsis of this film without spoiling some key elements. Those key elements took me by surprise because I feel like the film set up some expectations and quickly diverted them to throw you into a weird sense of the unknown. When an accident happens in the first quarter of this film, I was shocked. From then on, I had no idea where this film was going and what dark path it was going to take me on to get there. I was game.

Stellar performance from Toni Collete, someone I'm usually lukewarm on at best. She deserves some sort of recognition for how she tackles depression and terror. The anchor to this whole film, which never really gives you the chance to be happy or feel joy. Everyone is simply depressed or scared. Alex Wolff plays her son and he feels like he is in a comatose state for most of the film. His tragedy is horrific and everyone deals with it in their own way, he becomes shut off from family, friends and basically life. Gabriel Byrne plays the father/husband role. He's probably given the least to work with, but his role to trying to keep the family together. There is a notion that men must stay strong for others in their time of need. Byrne does this, only letting his true emotions out when no one is around to see.

The script is strong and when looking back there are lots of little hints here and there to this families history. You don't think about it at first, but when everything plays it, those bits take on other meanings. Much like the film Get Out, this film takes pride in the small details that many people may miss. I like the choices Aster makes here, very focused and deliberate. The entire inside of the house was built on a sound stage so they could remove the walls and give the rooms a 'dollhouse' look. Very effective.

There are some elements that are obvious and thus the reveal at the end isn't as shocking, but as a whole, this film works on multiple levels. In the climax, the film tends to lean more towards traditional horror, but that was to be expected and it still unnerves in the right places.