Spoilers for both movies, but...
Watching these two practically one after another is a bit odd for their immediate similarities and contrasts. Both are about relatively innocent (or at least harmless) people getting eaten by an implacable, irresistible external power. Both are about two women unfulfilled and hurt by the people and structures they depend on for their survival and emotional well-being. Both end with the final choices each protagonist makes in the face of the evils they've endured and witnessed.
However
In The VVitch Thomasin watches, in real time, the anguished, piecemeal destruction of a family she undeniably and uncompromisedly loves despite the (relatively minor) injustices and indignities she's had to put up with. She's thoroughly invested in her faith. But in the end, she... chooses to side with the literal Devil, the immediate author of all her pain and suffering? Why? There's no lead up to this, no indication that she even flirted with the idea, no reason offered where it could be a good idea in any way, shape or form. The emotional buildup of this fraught film fizzles out to nothing because the last choice made makes no sense.
In Midsommar, it makes perfect sense that Dani ends with the implicit decision that she's fine with the cult, and is probably going to end up joining it, body and soul. She lost everything she loved in life, and found a place where everyone is nice to her, end up treating her like a queen even. But it makes too much sense-- there's no emotional weight to her decision because there's no real dilemma involved. She's as trapped as her companions-- I almost said 'friends' there-- in the commune, had nothing to go back to even if she managed to get out, and a kingdom to gain if she stayed. It's even doubtful just how much agency she had in her choice, with the amount of psychedelics everyone was being plied with throughout the film. The 'choice' then just becomes the last touch on a sequence of weird things happening, and it just happened to work out in her favor after all.
Both movies set their respective moods masterfully. Both have instances of stunning cinematography, are written with painstaking care and attention to detail, and repeatedly successfully coaxes out that feeling of dread and foreboding that good horror should. So in those respects, both are good movies.
But because one left me confused, and the other left me bemused, both are good movies that I just don't happen to like very much.
Also, all the promotional materials I've seen for The VVitch uses those two V's, so by golly, I'm using two V's.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/ijs6yf/i_watched_the_vvitch_and_midsommar_back_to_back/
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