Genre: Horror/ Comedy
Time: 3hrs
Director: Ari Aster
Quick Summary: Following the sudden death of his mother, a mild-mannered but anxiety-ridden man confronts his darkest fears as he embarks on an epic, Kafkaesque odyssey back home.
I'm not entirely sure how to describe this. This kinda broke my brain.
Cinematography wise this was amazing. It was full of clever shots and camera pans. The use of colours and the background scenery is honestly so imaginative. I was so hooked on how visually entertaining this is. It goes all out with the scenes, maxing out how much they can fit in without overloading and it works. There is always something going on, even in the background which I really liked.
The dialogue I really enjoyed too, constantly playing upon what other people's reactions are to words we don't actually hear which I found really interesting. As well the monologues were perfectly paced and I never found myself getting bored of what was being said. A good handful of things I found funny too, even if they were just reactions or little comments between characters. Though, sadly, the things that I assume were meant to be funny, were not funny to me. They just didn't land at all with me. Without spoiling a few things, some were too vulgar and cringe to me, which granted others may find funny.
The plot honestly on paper sounds fantastic and super engaging, but in actual reality, it came across as really poor. I think it is because this feels like 3 different films in one that never manage to figure out how to fit together. It feels super disjointed and becomes hard to follow since there is a
lot that happens in this movie that I'm sure never really knew how to tell. I'm still not sure if I actually enjoyed this or not. Because each separate hour was really good, full of interesting ideas and so much creative storytelling, it's just they didn't work together well at all. The ideas are so interesting, playing on paranoid thoughts coming to life and living with narcissistic parents, just a shame it was way too much to digest in one film.
Joaquin Phoenix is amazing in this. His acting is always top-tier to me. He manages to play this scared, possibly schizophrenic, timid man, who we follow his point of view. So everything we see, nothing makes sense as much as it would to him. Nothing seems right and everything is absolutely insane. But he grabs this role incredibly well, I think he was the perfect casting for this. He knows exactly what he is doing with it. In every scene with just him talking I was hooked. Being an unreliable narrator is so hard to pull off, but he does it so damn well.
The first hour was so promising, the set-up for this was so perfectly done. Everything after that was so disappointing. There is way too much to process crammed in, it just led to way too many questions that never get answered. Honestly, I don't think Anything got explained in the end, it just ended. It really is a shame because this is so well made and produced in every other aspect. Don't get me wrong it is immersive and so so skilful when looking at the camera work, you really want to know what is going to happen next, but it's so janky when put together as a whole.
For such a unique and heavily styled film, was overall disappointed and confused. The themes in this are so interesting to look at and analyse, but it goes to the extreme in trying to get them across to us. I found it bizarre that I equally love this film and find it so confusing. The weirdness is good, but then it was weird without reason and become too much and hard to understand.
If there was a way to summarise this, it would just be paranoid anxiety comes to life. There's way too much to unpack in one sitting. I think this is a clever film, but it's hard to actually enjoy the film. I wouldn't recommend it for a casual watch, but it is good to analyse.
5/10
" I waited for you."
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