‘Midsommar' hints at brilliance but falls flat

At long last, “Midsommar” asks the cinematic question we've all been waiting for: How, precisely, does one say “completely bonkers” in Swedish?

Fans of highfalutin horror have been awaiting “Midsommar” with interest since last year, when the writer-director Ari Aster made a stunning - if uneven - debut with the creepy dysfunctional domestic drama “Hereditary.” Reportedly, he had formed the idea for “Midsommar” even before the first film, which he considered an allegory about family trauma. This one, he says, is his breakup movie.

And it's a doozy. As “Midsommar” opens, a young woman named Dani (Florence Pugh) is coping with an unfathomable loss, an emotional crisis that forces her to rely on her not-always-reliable boyfriend, a grad student named Christian (Jack Reynor). When Christian and his anthropology department buddies decide to take a trip to a tiny Swedish village to observe a rare midsummer ritual, they see it as a healthy separation; but soon enough, Christian is inviting Dani along, to the consternation of the bros and his own obvious ambivalence.

In many ways, “Midsommar” is also about trauma, in this case the tragedy that Dani is only partially processing as she first tags along on this long, strange trip, then becomes increasingly absorbed into the bizarre rites Christian and his buddies are there to observe.

As “Midsommar” progresses, viewers might suspect the entire movie is nothing but a protracted drug trip, as Dani, Christian and their peers realize that the groovy commune they're visiting has a considerably darker side. As he did in “Hereditary,” Aster proves to be a master at establishing tension through atmosphere, using his own carefully constructed environment - in this case a verdant piece of countryside dotted with attractively rustic lodges, maypoles festooned with gorgeous flowers and mysterious runic symbols - as a queasily effective foil for the creeping terror at hand.

In in fact, many of Aster's themes recall that earlier film, which also dealt with male gaslighting, female distress and the trance-like powers of a cult. Pugh delivers a raw, unfiltered performance as a woman fighting forces she only dimly understands.

But, as was the case with Aster's first film, “Midsommar” starts to collapse in on itself, as the filmmaker indulges arcane rules and fussy pageants of his own devising that seem increasingly arbitrary, not to mention deeply unsettling. What might have been a chilling allegory about betrayal and mistrust blurs into something inert, fetishistic and hysterically pitched, with Aster more interested in manifesting his own elaborately sadistic visions than in homing in on genuine meaning.

There's no doubt that Aster is an artist of considerable gifts; the question is whether he's an artist of ideas deeper than turning the smiles of a summer night into sinister grins.