By C. Ramsay
Unexpectedly, this came across much more as a horror film leeching from the elements of a traumatic family drama than it did as purely an overwrought romance. Many other horror films came to mind during the runtime, including The Witch, Midsommar, and Mother!, but none more so than Antichrist. There is a world that exists outside of the core family, and other people we see them regularly interacting with, yet they feel ultimately, and unknowingly, confined to their tableaux, unable to integrate into broader society in any meaningful way for the audience to see. It’s as if they live within one of the miniatures from Hereditary, toiling endlessly toward some sort of meaning, some stability, in a world that can only support incomprehensible grotesquery masked by striking beauty. Agnes, Will, and their children are players who are unaware of their roles, trapped in a Hellish limbo, and fated to process loss in incompatible ways.
The Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, in which Orpheus tries and fails to retrieve his partner from the underworld, is introduced early on in the film and regularly evoked as a through line as the familial hardships worsen, but this is not the only embedded mythology. Death, too, is conveyed as a character through camera motion—always present, always hovering, but quiet, patient, and waiting. Yet, this characterization is obfuscated as being distinct from the audience due to the shared perspective. We are, and it is, unable to leave the family. We know what we are here for, and though we may wish otherwise, we get exactly that.
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