Midsommar: Director’s Cut

Dir. Ari Aster. 2019. 171 mins. DCP. With Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Vilhelm Blomgren, William Jackson Harper, Will Poulter. Dani and Christian are a young American couple whose relationship is on the brink of falling apart. But after a family tragedy keeps them together, a grieving Dani invites herself along on a trip with Christian and his friends to a once-in-a-lifetime midsummer festival in a remote Swedish village. What begins as a carefree summer holiday in a land of eternal sunlight takes a sinister turn when the insular villagers invite their guests to partake in festivities that render the pastoral paradise increasingly unnerving and viscerally disturbing. The latest film by emerging genre auteur Ari Aster (Hereditary) is a dread-soaked cinematic fairytale where a world of darkness unfolds in broad daylight. Recently released, the Director’s Cut contains nearly 30 minutes of previously unseen footage.