June 22, 2018
"Hereditary"; Director: Ari Aster; Cast: Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex
Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd and Mallory Bechtel; Rating: ***1/2
Director Ari Aster's immaculately crafted, black-hearted, horror-in-the-home
fantasia "Hereditary" eerily keeps you glued to the screen.
The film is
atmospheric with the right blend of exasperation, humour and a large dose of
horror. Despite a conventional plot which is full of details that anticipate the
flow with great intelligence while escaping the convention of the horror genre
successfully, the film builds upon a new style more inclined to the arthouse.
What makes the film so engrossing is that at the core, it is a family drama
that is accentuated to incomprehensible levels. The director raises the tension
without falling completely into the territory typical of any horror film.
Through a spiritualistic ritual in the narrative, the film exposes its true
nature of a traditional plot. But, it also brings to the fore, a conversation
about the horrors of mental health, and how they can affect offspring in many
ways.
The film begins with the death of Ellen, Graham's grandmother and
how her daughter, Annie (Toni Collette) deals with her departure after a life
marked by a tortuous relationship. This forms the crux of the tale.
Ellen's death affects every member of the family in different ways, although the
one who seems most distressed is Charlie (Milly Shapiro), Annie's
thirteen-year-old daughter, who had grown up almost closer to her grandmother
than her own mother.
At first, it simply seems that the grandmother could
have with the granddaughter the relationship she never had with her own
daughter, but quickly a more gloomy connection is glimpsed, once Charlie's
existence is cut short. Those who seem least affected are Peter (Alex Wolff),
the eldest son and Annie's husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne).
Every character
is well-chiselled and performed to perfection. Milly Shapiro while behaving
strangely as Charlie, is extraordinary. Your heart goes out to her in a
heart-breaking and unusual turn of events, which is executed with jaw-dropping
brilliance. Alex Wolff holds your attention with an equally intense performance
as the older brother, especially because he happens to become the focus of the
film as the plot progresses.
Toni Collette as Annie is a true force of
nature. She portrays all the possible emotions of a destroyed mother and all
that she is capable of doing while trying to keep going despite having a
fractured psyche. Her commendable performance is what elevates the intriguing
factor of the film, because the entire second act is basically about how she
loses apparent contact with reality and how her actions deteriorate her standing
before the eyes of her husband, which is not frightening but desperate and sad.
Gabriel Byrne plays her supporting husband and a traditional concerned
father with restraint.
As mentioned earlier, the director does not spoon
feed you with all the tropes of the horror genre. Instead, he makes you
experience every scene painfully so that they register in your mind. The camera
work without much frills, straight-cut edits and ominous sound design elevates
the viewing experience.
Overall, the film, despite its crazy supernatural
and classically mythological streak satisfies you as an intense family drama.