Ari Aster Archives | Deep Focus Review

Eddington

Brian Eggert — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:53:21 +0000

Listen to the audio version of this review. Ari Aster dissects the culture war with Eddington, a portrait of how COVID-19 irrevocably tore America apart at its already frayed seams. The pandemic intensified partisan rancor, social fragmentation, and reactionary behavior—conditions that enabled opportunists to seize power amid the chaos and, ultimately, profit from it. Set in late May 2020, the film looks back five years at the titular New Mexico town, seemingly in an attempt to understand what led to the erosion of democracy in Trump’s America today. Described as a Western in the promotional materials, it’s also a period piece, though the time hardly feels that long ago, much to the film’s detriment. Still, Aster captures the uncertainty, paranoia, and desperate search for answers that drove people to rely on the worst possible source: social media. Rather than offering clarity, it only deepened the divide between the right and left, as both sides leaned into their worst impulses and most extreme reactions. Fortunately, Eddington boasts an excellent cast, led by another tour-de-force performance by Joaquin Phoenix under Aster’s direction. It’s unquestionably well-crafted and brimming with the director’s anxiety-ridden style. But the question remains: Is now the right time for […]

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Beau Is Afraid

Brian Eggert — Thu, 04 May 2023 20:30:40 +0000

In Beau’s bathroom, there’s a small picture of a woman holding her infant child face-to-face. Writer-director Ari Aster returns to this motif in Beau Is Afraid, again with a small knick-knack that Beau intends to give to his mother, on the bottom of which he inscribes, “Thank you I’m sorry I love you.” And again with a statue that towers next to his mother’s home. But if you look closely at the picture in his bathroom, the angelic figure appears to have sharp, monstrous nails supporting the baby’s head. The sight, just one of the film’s countless surreal and Freudian details, surely spilling out from the protagonist’s subconscious, is funny and disturbing. Much of Aster’s film is like that. You don’t know whether you should laugh or feel aghast by this Kafkaesque voyage into Beau’s pointedly Jewish identity. Both reactions are correct, and you’ll probably feel them simultaneously. After all, the line between comedy and horror is thin. Laughter and fear come from our essential selves; you either find something amusing or scary, or you don’t. Aster’s film might terrify you at points, and at others, it might be the most strangely hilarious Greek tragedy you’ve ever seen. However, after […]

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Midsommar

Brian Eggert — Fri, 05 Jul 2019 13:59:34 +0000

When Midsommar’s group of American college students journeys into the isolated farming commune of Hårga, Sweden, led by their classmate who grew up there, director Ari Aster’s camera turns over to an inverted angle, entering us into a world upside down. The quiet, idyllic village in the middle of the forest may not seem out of the ordinary, but its closeness to Nature and the uncommon life cycle embraced by its inhabitants reveal a rejection of traditional western beliefs. What begins as a compelling anthropological investigation unravels into a pagan nightmare of folk horror, where the midnight sun, psychedelia, sexual enchantments, sacrifice, and worship of the natural world each have a vital role in the ensuing nine-day festival. A haunting and uncanny experience, Midsommar is Aster’s assured second film that, similarly to his debut with last year’s Hereditary, draws from dozens of ingrained horror sources and motifs to instill something altogether inspired. Aster wields a two-pronged setup that pokes at feelings of anxiety about remote communities and their link to an untamed wilderness, while also presenting characters whose interpersonal drama underscores every potently disturbing situation in the film. Once again, Aster scars his characters with a horrific trauma that reverberates […]

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Hereditary

Brian Eggert — Sun, 10 Jun 2018 17:38:45 +0000

The distributors at A24 have done a marvelous job marketing Hereditary, a horror film that debuted in the Midnight category of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Those who avoid reading much about movies before their release often find themselves knowing exactly what to expect by the time a new title makes it into theaters. Trailers tell us everything, so we know exactly what we’re paying for—or at least what we think we’re paying for, since previews often amount to misrepresentations. A24, an indie company that emerged in 2013 and has since released some of the most exciting and original films in the last five years, avoided telling audiences much about Hereditary beforehand. Clips showed us star Toni Collette howling in terror, a strange girl making a clucking sound with her tongue, someone on fire, a teenage boy screaming, and bizarre imagery that didn’t register as any kind of familiar horror subgenre. That’s the best way to see this film, going in without a clear understanding of its hook, and A24’s promotional campaign piqued interest without giving anything away. With that in mind, if you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor: stop reading and see the film. It’s best to […]

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