The Strange Thing About the Johnsons

The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011) is a thirty minute short and Ari Aster's graduate thesis film, made seven years before Hereditary. From outside it is a model suburban family: a successful poet father, his wife, and their charismatic son. Inside, the father is trapped in an abusive relationship with the son. The film does not imply this. It states it from the opening scenes. Aster has been open about why he chose the subject. Every thesis film around him was decent, well mannered, and angling for a prize, so he picked the most unacceptable premise he could think of. It screened at Slamdance in 2011, leaked online that November, and went viral. Fourteen years later it still produces a physical reaction in viewers, and that reaction is the reason anyone knows it. Every habit of Aster's later work is already here: domestic catastrophe shot like comedy, long uncomfortable pauses, and a strange solemnity at the end. The cast, particularly Billy Mayo as the father and Angela Bullock as the mother, rescue the material by taking it seriously. It runs 30 minutes. Who should not watch it, and this belongs first: incest and sexual abuse are the direct subject. Curiosity is not a sufficient reason. Who it is for: viewers who want to know where Ari Aster came from, and independent cinema built on taboo.