2018 Film Review: Hereditary (2018)

Directed by: Ari Aster
Written by: Ari Aster
Starring: Toni Collette, Milly Shapiro, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff
IMDb Link

This movie is fascinating in its execution, with not-quite-pastel colours and soft, natural lighting coalescing to create a strong sense of space, a light but deliberate touch to the senses that lulls you in to a false sense of security, throwing you off only a tiny bit at a time, before cascading in to darker and darker territory as you lose all sense of control and realise that it was pre-destined from the outset. Hereditary reminds me a lot of Rosemary's Baby in this regard, carefully exercising the process of set-up and pay off over and over again to stack horrific realisation on top of horrific realisation, and even though the mythology gets a little hokey and a rare couple of moments landed as cheesy rather than scary for me, I still found it largely to be some of the most well made horror in recent years.

A death in the Graham family leads to its undoing. Even when she's gone, grandmother Ellen casts a shadow over her whole family, leaving her daughter Annie (Collette) to grapple with the damage done by Ellen in Annie's life and the complicated ways in which this affected Annie's relationship with her own children. Hereditary is about control and the illusion of control, and as we learn the extent of Ellen's impact it becomes all too disturbing how little we have of either.

What I appreciated first about Hereditary is its calculated approach to cinematography; it moves slowly, at a painfully soft pace, making sure to frame everything with the greatest of care, highlighting the square mise en scene which in turn enhances the motif set immediately by the movie of using Annie's professional miniature art work to position the false sense of control and our attempt to wield it against the same sense and attempts by the characters themselves. At first it all seems so ordered and comfortable, the only aspect placed intentionally off being the colour palette, which toes the line between natural and dollhouse pastel. The movie uses this, throwing things off little by little, until what was once acceptance turns in to paranoia and you wish the camera would just move faster or shut off completely. The events are grizzly, and they leave you feeling sick, but the excellent camera work makes it all the harder to stomach and all the better for it. What's more, though, is just how much information the film manages to convey visually; the occasional diagetic text can be a little convenient, but other than those rare occurrences the film manages to tell everything it needs to with what you can see. Although I wouldn't recommend it, just for how good the use of sound is in this movie, you can understand the significance of every scene with the whole thing muted.

Toni Collette's performance is most assuredly the strongest part of the film. While every actor turns in good work, Collette is front and centre for most of the film, and carries with her an incredibly humanising presence that seems to bring everything about the film together. Despite the supernatural circumstances, the strong family dynamics and Collette's ability to completely realise her part in it makes every moment with her incredibly engaging; she's vulnerable, she's hurt, the circumstances of her character are so grey it would take a lifetime to unpack, and Collette makes just about every aspect of Annie something worth getting invested in, at least to the point of trying to understand the deep-seated issues she and her family carry. No matter how crazy it got, she was a powerhouse.

The writing supports Collette's character, and indeed the rest of the characters, very well. As I said before, the film conveys its story visually, which means that most of what we hear from the characters feels like real conversation; half finished words, implied ideas and inferred meaning, the occasional emotional outburst that strikes all too hard given the context, it all feels like human talking, shouting, and crying with each other, rather than characters whose goal is to convey exposition. It's really fantastic, and when coupled with the human performances it makes for a bizarrely and effectively realistic family in such an unrealistic scenario. The film doesn't waste anything it introduces, either, with very intentional set-up behind anything the film isn't using to pay off something else, and exploiting the realisations that come with those payoffs for maximum effect.

The Short Version: Hereditary is a meticulously crafted slow-burn of a horror that left me drained, sick to my stomach, and wishing for death. Essentially, it's the best horror movie in years.

Rating: 9/10

Published June 8th, 2018