An average movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was directed by Ari Aster and since it was available on YouTube, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, it was certainly intriguing and really provocative, even more than Aster’s following work. Basically, he tried to tackle a seriously taboo subject which was ‘What if a young boy would be sexually attracted to his father?’. Of course, the material was seriously disturbing and hard to watch but there was definitely some potential though. Furthermore, Aster went for a combination of tones and, in only 30 mins, he gave us pretty everything much from dark comedy, thriller and family drama which was quite impressive. Unfortunately, I’m afraid the damned thing still didn’t really work though. First of all, even though such horrifying things might happen for real, the approach was hardly convincing though. Basically, they decided to skip how this ‘relationship’ did grow and, instead, they displayed this father has a victim but it didn’t buy it. Indeed, it seemed obvious that his son’s deviant behavior started at a fairly young age so why didn’t he reject it? Why didn’t he send him to a psychiatrist instead of going along? Another bewildering choice was to go for a black family which seemed to be misguided. Obviously, Aster didn’t mean to say that such things only happen with black folks. However, by choosing a black family instead of white one like himself, it seemed that he tried, at least, subconsciously, to take his distance from the material, to convince himself that he had nothing to do with such behavior. On the other hand, I might be completely mistaken and maybe he meant something completely different. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a bold directorial early effort and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Ari Aster’s work. 

6/10