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| This moment precipitates the slide toward non-stop visual and narrative "insanity" in Ari Aster's Hereditary (2018) |
Since everyone out there in "horror film" land has eagerly been anticipating this film, has seen it, or has seen a bazillion reviews about Ari Aster's
Hereditary (2018), I figure it's time for me to weigh in. Not only should you see this film if you are into horror, but you should probably screen it more than once, since a great deal happens in little corners of the frame, and certain moments take on much greater significance (and perhaps a shift in meaning) upon film's end.
The film follows one particular family, The Grahams, as they process the death of their mother/grandmother, a difficult woman that her artist daughter, Annie (Toni Collette) tends to immortalize in these miniature dioramas of her house, and the experiences she has there. Rounding out the rest of the Grahams are psychiatrist/father, Steve (Gabriel Byrne), with eldest son, Peter (Alex Wolff), and younger, ambiguously disabled daughter, Charlie (Milly Shapiro). Unsurprisingly, this family is really pretty bad at expressing their emotions and supporting each other in times of crisis, so the death of Annie's Mom sends them on a slippery slope, and then over a precipice into a nightmare abyss from which there is no return. The film is a pretty slow burn, punctuated by the death of a main character a la Alfred Hitchcock's
Psycho. Once that death occurs, things start to escalate, but the film really gets into gear in the last 15 minutes of the film, and then things just get nuts. While one has to be careful how one uses words like "insanity," "crazy," or "nuts," the ending of
Hereditary is so intense, over the top, and out there, that these terms seem quite appropriate--especially for a film that in some ways at least calls out, if still not really exploring, the pain of mental illness. I haven't seen an ending in a contemporary horror film that left my mouth hanging open quite so much as
Hereditary's, not since Liam Gavin's
A Dark Song (2016)--a film I really need to rewatch and review.
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| Annie (Toni Collette) channels her turbulent inner life by creating bespoke interiors |
One of my favorite things about
Hereditary is its portrait of its protagonist/artist, Annie. She makes these finely detailed dioramas of her personal space, and many clues to the film's world are lurking in these miniature realms. Indeed, the film begins through a clever device thrusting us into its world, as one of Annie's miniature rooms is suddenly charged into animation by Steve walking into his Peter's room in order to wake him for Grandma's funeral.
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| Making living in "little boxes" all too real |
This liminal, psychological space, formed and perfected through Annie's artistry, constantly shifts as Annie's perspective changes. No one really talks about their feelings in the Graham household, compelling Annie to visit grief counseling groups, rather than turning to her psychiatrist/husband, Steve. On the whole, Steve is one of the most useless characters ever committed to celluloid, and sure, Gabriel Byrne is underplaying his role, but
Hereditary really does some harm to representations of the psychiatric and therapeutic communities. In fact, it's in grief counseling where Annie meets Joan (the always marvelous Ann Dowd), who sends her on a journey that "ignites" a spark that rapidly explodes the family's already tenuous connections to each other. What I'm suggesting, in perhaps a roundabout way, is that the film does a wonderful job of allowing Annie an outlet for some of her pain
at the same time implying that her safe, miniaturized universe will not save her from the sh**storm to come. One particularly powerful moment has Annie regaling her grief group with an anecdote regarding her mother's overbearing presence in raising her daughter, Charlie, which the film chooses to illustrate by returning spectators to the world of her dioramas. These chilling illustrations punctuate the film's past and present with reminders about the unsettling contents of Annie's psyche.
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| Annie illustrates a not-very-touching scene where her mother's domineering presence hinders her connection to Charlie |
Also, Toni Collette has given one of the best performances of her acting career. During the film, you cannot take your eyes off her. She combines sympathy with charisma and the kind of blithe cluelessness that seems essential in order for horror film protagonists to fall into the hot messes required. She performs grief, rage, stoicism, confusion, and mania with equal expertise, and like Amelia in
The Babadook, spectators are both identifying with and afraid of Annie--quite a trick that only the most talented actors can pull off. While horror films rarely get enough accolades, one hopes that someone in these various awarding institutions realizes the tremendous performance Collette gives in
Hereditary.
Of course, I wouldn't be a horror film critic if I didn't s**t a little bit on the effusive love of
Hereditary by calling out some of its most egregious problems. Be warned, from here onward there are lots of ***spoilers.
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| Herditary's representations of disability, and their alignment with evil, really suck |
The film's pat representations of both mental illness and disability, and their ultimate link to demonic evil are a really BIG problem, and I have seen some, but not a ton, of discussion about these issues in reviews. First, audiences learn from a monologue Annie gives to the camera/her grief support group, that she comes from a long line of mentally ill family members, including her mother and brother. This revelation, combined with the tragic ways in which the Grahams communicate/do not communicate with each other, points a finger throughout the rest of the film right at "bad MOM" Annie, who perhaps has inherited these unfortunate traits, and has indeed passed them onto her disabled daughter, Charlie.
Then there's Charlie's unnamed, undiagnosed, and unclear disability. Ominously pegged as Grandma's favorite, she barely speaks, and needs to be monitored at all times since she cannot seem to control her own vicious nut allergy. Is she on the autism spectrum, developmentally disabled?
Hereditary is happy to use her disability to make Charlie creepy and unlikable, but cannot spare the time to either explain what's wrong, nor flesh out her interior world. Like Annie, Charlie also appears to be an artist, constructing her own little effigies out of various parts, but she happens to cut the heads off of dead birds to use in her contraptions. Such details become important when spectators find out at film's end that Charlie houses a demon who's trapped inside her inferior female body until "he" can find a preferable male vessel in Peter. Here is the film's great conceit: Charlie isn't actually disabled, but rather
possessed by a demon, seemingly compelling her to decapitate herself in order for the demon, Paimon, to sneak into her now devastated brother, Peter. This great demon uprising has been in play since before Charlie's birth, as Annie's mom had pressured her to have children in order to create this vessel. Which brings me to the most tired and cliched part of
Hereditary:
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| Moms are evil and will destroy everything and everyone--including themselves--for the greater demon good |
Women, especially mothers, are evil, self-absorbed, and not protective, and will do anything to reestablish patriarchal dominance through the worshiping of male demons, and once that's handled, they might as well off themselves in one of the most incredible, indelible images ever to be committed to horror film. Seriously, the image of Toni Collette's Annie, levitating up into the upper corner of the house, manically sawing her own head off in front of Peter's horrified gaze is going to stay with me for a really long time. That image, followed by a perverse tableau of demon worship (visited by a trio of headless female corpses) enacted in the family tree house, leaves Peter the last guy/demon standing, compelled into place by the machinations of some demon-worshiping cult (led by Anne Dowd, of course).
So
Hereditary isn't a film about mental illness, or a family's inability to cope with grief. Nope. The long con is a plan to resurrect a demon, and it works. Women are only pawns or tools in achieving this dream, and their bodies are easily violated as they are mere supplicants to this patriarchal fantasy run amok. Now you might think, "
Hereditary is obviously a critique of these ideas because it's representing them in such a blatant manner." I would then sigh, heavily, and once again remind readers that "representing" racism, sexism, and homophobia doesn't necessarily mean that those problems are critiqued, and very well might be reinforced by said representations.
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| Come for the occult rituals and weirdness, but don't be fooled by talk of "cultural critique" |
Should you see
Hereditary? Definitely. The film is visually provocative, marked by a riveting performance by Toni Collette, revels in various uncanny settings, and is laden with enough creepy occult stuff to pretty much demand repeat viewing. What are those words written sporadically on the walls of the house? What are some clues that Joan's really evil, and how does Charlie manifest this evil while she still has her "girl" body? How many shallow shout-outs to mental illness are there? Why is Steve clearly the worst mental illness professional ever? These questions are sure to haunt viewers after their first screening, but nothing, NOTHING haunts as much as that image of Annie frantically sawing off her own head. Still haunted.
