The Witch

My 666th diary entry!!! 🥳👹 I love this movie more and more every time I watch it. The shot compositions (especially the use of chiaroscuro and negative space) are unbelievably stunning. But what really sticks out to me more in every viewing is the script and the characters. I love the family dynamic in this. I love that they feel very well placed within this time period that is so far removed from our modern day, yet we still recognize the dynamics between the family members as something that is not so different from modern families. Obviously, this is a radical puritan family but at the end of the day, the children are children. They play and fight and bicker and get on each other’s nerves and tattle to mom and dad. The parents feel very real and familiar. I was reminded of Ordinary People watching Kate Dickie’s performance as the grief-stricken mother who finds herself placing blame and taking her emotions out on her daughter. But it’s Ralph Ineson’s William who I find most interesting as this man who is was too hardcore fire and brimstone for the other puritans that they kicked him out, but he is still a very loving father and husband. A lesser movie would have made him a villain, but Eggers goes out of his way to humanize this man at every turn. You feel for every single member of this family even if you don’t understand the specificities of their way of life, you understand the core of them.