Midsommar is the film that disturbed my colleague Rich Smith so deeply, he vowed to never enter an Ikea ever again. Not even for their lingonberry juice boxes and cheap, but sturdy, end tables. I love their lingonberry juice boxes and cheap, but sturdy, end tables. Now, just two months after the film premiered across the nation, director Ari Aster has gone and released a director's cut with 24 extra minutes of content.

IndieWire says this cut isn't a radically different movie, "but it’s a much richer one; some of the added moments are less vital than others, but all of them help to create a more textured experience," calling it "what a director’s cut should be." And we're in luck because Ark Lodge Cinemas—who are in some dire straits and in need of patrons to stay afloat—will be screening this deep cut at the end of the month.

If you need any more reasons to see this film, here's some encouragement from Smith:

"But [Ari Aster] does more than just estrange the clean lines and soft petals of the Scandinavian aesthetic, which I've been brainwashed to associate with serenity. He also perverts any coping mechanism I might be able to use to shake the horror. Radical empathy in this film, for instance, serves as a way to hide the village's evil practices."

And Art and Film Calendar Editor Joule Zelman, who reviewed the film for our July 3 issue, has some thoughts about family in Midsommar:

Family, Aster's film implies, is held together by beauty, love, and a magical third ingredient: dehumanizing violence toward those who are unwanted. That the violence is aestheticized and sanctified is the point. Real trauma is transformed into theatrics so the whole community can purge itself. Even cherished family members must sometimes suffer for this renewal.

Check back here for ticket information to support a local, independent theater!