3.5 stars out of 5
This movie is seriously f’ed. Enjoyable would be the wrong word, but… it holds your attention, that’s for sure. This psychological thriller/horror tale is slow and tense, with occasional helpings of “OMG, that is really messed up.”
First things first: I don’t think I’m supposed to find Toni Collette extremely attractive in this film, and yet I do. That is my cross to bear. Anyway, we continue.
Collette is Annie, the mom, who is also a miniature-making artist (adding another layer of twistedness here). Gabriel Byrne, who is not Liam Neeson nor is he Ralph Fiennes and someday I will sort that all out, is the dad. Annie’s mother has just passed away, and that puts some heavy stress on the family dynamic. And Little Charlie — a terrific, creepy, mature-beyond-her-years Milly Shapiro — is already pretty disturbed. Meanwhile, teenage Pete just wants to keep his head down, get high, and maybe talk to that girl in his class.
We soon learn that Annie has had a very troubled family history (is it… hereditary?) and on the down-low, she seeks out a support group for her grieving. There, she meets Joanie — Ann Dowd, who was Patti on The Leftovers, so you know things are only going to get worse.
Collette is pretty great, bottled up, trying to hold it together (keepittogether keepittogether keepittogether), and then not holding it together too well. As far as unreliable protagonists go, she shares the prize this year with Claire Foy in Unsane. Byrne wants to be the steady one at home but the RAGE IS BUILDING UP as his wife behaves screwier and screwier. Pete is becoming unglued too and is fun to watch. He’s portrayed by Alex Wolff, who I covered in 2007 when he was in the kid show The Naked Brothers Band — I wish my friend Marie, teen media editor extraordinaire, was around to see this. Birds, ants, and flies also feature prominently.
The movie keeps you guessing, is definitely “out there,” and may very well leave you wondering “Huh?” Personally, I couldn’t wait to read the Wikipedia entry, but it turns out that whoever wrote it understood the film as well as I did. One thing is crystal clear from Hereditary: By comparison, your own family is not nearly as dysfunctional as you’ve imagined.
Yes, my family IS!