--- title: Review: Ari Aster's Horror Movie 'Midsommar' Loses Its Plot description: Ari Aster's 'Midsommar' is best during wild, spooky moments. But Aster is obsessed with building tension to the point of losing the plot. canonical: https://time.com/5615615/midsommar-movie-review/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-06-27T10:13:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T23:51:46.385Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Midsommar' Loses Its Plot Under a Sinister Midnight Sun og:description: Midsommar' is Ari Aster's follow-up to his 2018 'Hereditary' og:url: https://time.com/5615615/midsommar-movie-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2561807c74d5c279/6989ff2009208fc77e415280/midsommar-movie-review.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: midsommar-movie-review og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Midsommar' Loses Its Plot Under a Sinister Midnight Sun twitter:description: Midsommar' is Ari Aster's follow-up to his 2018 'Hereditary' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2561807c74d5c279/6989ff2009208fc77e415280/midsommar-movie-review.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _Midsommar_ Loses Its Plot Under a Sinister Midnight Sun > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Jun 27, 2019 10:13 AM UTC  William Jackson Harper, Will Poulter, Pugh and Reynor: Let the grim games begin! William Jackson Harper, Will Poulter, Pugh and Reynor: Let the grim games begin!A24  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Jun 27, 2019 10:13 AM UTC Hell is other people’s customs. That could be the tagline for Ari Aster’s terror-round-the-maypole dread-fest _Midsommar_, if the movie had even the remotest sense of humor about itself. Dani (Florence Pugh), a young psychology student who has just lost her sister and parents in a horrific incident, accepts a reluctant invitation from her loser boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) to join him on the trip to Sweden he’s about to undertake with some buds from his graduate program. One of the guys, the excessively mild-mannered Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren), has invited the group specifically to observe a traditional midsummer celebration hosted by the people of the small, cloistered community in which he was raised. There will be flowers, singing, men and women in white robes, and filleted human corpses flopping about. _Skal!_ _Midsommar_ is Aster’s follow-up to his 2018 grief-a-go-go art-horror exercise _Hereditary_–and beware the filmmaker who’s exercising, when just making films will do. Aster has some good ideas, and skill at bringing them to life onscreen: there’s a flower crown, worn by a fair maiden, whose blossoms appear to breathe–it blinks at us lazily, like a malevolent sea creature. _Midsommar_–in places reminiscent of the 1973 British horror classic _The Wicker Man_–is best during these wild and spooky storybook moments. Nature is all around, and it’s not always your friend. But Aster is obsessed with building tension to the point of losing the plot. He can’t stop at merely glancing or suggesting. Instead, he’s constantly reminding us–with ominous references to runes and sacred books, with tastefully framed shots of a deformed oracle who’s the product of incest, with dialogue that tries in vain to make you care about the travails of young, self-absorbed academics–that this is “smart” horror and not your run-of-the-mill scare-fest. Pugh, who was so chillingly blank and wonderful in William Oldroyd’s 2016 revenge-of-the-wife drama _Lady Macbeth_, gives a sturdy performance, but she’s lost in the midst of Aster’s obsession with grisly Hieronymus Bosch–tinged tableaux and icky, smashed skulls à la Francis Bacon. There’s also some decidedly unsexy ritualistic sex, as naked old people look on. Enter the love shack at your own risk. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5615615/midsommar-movie-review/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5615615/midsommar-movie-review/"},"headline":"Midsommar Loses Its Plot Under a Sinister Midnight Sun","datePublished":"2019-06-27T10:13:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T23:51:46.385Z","description":"Ari Aster's 'Midsommar' is best during wild, spooky moments. 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