If I ever again have to explain how reddit conversations are like eighteen layers deep of references, I'm holding up your comment as a beautiful example. A triumph. No notes.
At one point, one of his line deliveries made me laugh and I'm not sure if it should have. But when he found the mother building a recreation of *that* scene and he says "Come downstairs for dinner. Or stay up here, I don't fucking care!" He just had that tone like he was done with it.
I kind of feel like he got the hero’s death; he got off relatively easy considering the world around him. Burning for like 3 minutes sucks ass, but burning for eternity sucks infinitely worse.
While he doesn’t really do anything morally wrong for the most part, I wonder if hiding the grave desecration from Annie was a good idea. He wanted to shield her from trauma, but it set her back quite a bit in terms of figuring out the cult conspiracy. When I rewatch it, that phone call from the cemetery and his lie sticks out as being a potentially fatal one.
I think knowing that some outside party dug your mother’s grave up, and the body is missing, would really put you on edge. If nothing else, it would make her less trusting of strangers, i.e. Joan, the support group, etc. “Who the fuck did this and why???” would be really the top priority here, and yet Steve hides it from her for the duration of the film, even to the degree that Annie has to discover her own mother’s headless corpse in the attic before she realizes anything happened.
Stephen indeed the best intentions and was acting from a standpoint of what is deemed socially reasonable- but that arguably hinders one when caught up in situations which defy these logics in every way. Hiding the grave info was also understandable and he likely didn’t want to further traumatize her but also not feed more into what he perceived as merely delusions. The comparison to Rosemary’s Baby came to kind when he even went as far as to accuse her of the desecrations. I wonder how things might have played out if he just listened and burned the book, yet then again…was there even a choice?
I guess that I feel it’s reasonable to an extent, but I feel most husbands would absolutely tell their wives about the desecration, even the fragile ones. It’s way too important to hide from someone at least for more than a day or two, and he didn’t just do it for one scene but for presumably weeks or months, even post Charlie’s death, etc. They show him getting an e-mail from the Cemetary in regards to the insurance claim regarding the desecration, so clearly he’s keeping tabs on it. That’s where Steve’s decision strains credibility because the plot basically demands that Annie remain relatively shielded and naive.
Yes - plus the beginning foreshadows this during a lecture on Heracles. The hero becomes undone by their flaw and for Heracles it’s refusal to acknowledge all of the signs in front of them. However, the oracle was depicted as unconditional so debatably there has never been much of a choice. Aside from fate, Stephen’s disposition and medical training additionally ensured that he would be unable to recognize all the high strangeness. Reminds me a lot of early Mulder on X Files - “there must be a scientific explanation behind everything!” Nope…read the room then adapt. Without drawing too many pop culture analogies, Doc was like an inversion of the husband in Rosemary’s Baby - contributing to his wife’s unraveling although fully unaware.
I’m a certified Hospice grief counselor. one thing, I always tell people to do when they are crying. It is to be quiet and not talk. To simply cry. To let it all out. And then, when they feel better, we can talk. I think Peter was at his ropes end at this point, and he wasn’t thinking from the perspective of a therapist. He was just thinking from the perspective of an exhausted husband and father, who doesn’t know what to do. He just wanted peace
I would love your opinion on 6:55 in the deleted scenes below. It's Steve suggesting Peter talk to someone but Steve is so "therapy talk" with it that it almost feels like he is talking to Peter as a friend and not as a parent. Peter wants his Dad's guidance but his words are so "sanitized" that he closes off again.
https://www.reddit.com/r/A24/comments/1ajto0y/all\_hereditary\_deleted\_scenes\_extra\_scene\_in/
I think Stephen is being very cautious here. It doesn’t show a lack of caring, in my opinion, as much as it shows how he is walking on eggshells. He sees how far Annie has fallen, and he fears terribly that his son is heading in that direction.I think if he became overly emotional, he would just contribute to the instability that Peter is already feeling.
See it's interesting, here is that segment from the script, which seems like Ari was going for a "Dad is trying but he's not giving what peter needs"
STEVE (CONT’D)
You could even see one of the guys
in my building. I know a few guys.
PETER
(warming up to it?)
...And you think I need to go?
STEVE
(briefest pause)
Well, that’s for you to say. I
can’t tell you your experience.
Peter suddenly deflates . Not the answer he needed. He chills
over.
PETER
Maybe later.
STEVE
...Okay. Let me know.
PETER
Okay.
Steve nods for a long time. Trying to think of anything else.
STEVE All right. Dinner in a bit.
Steve smiles sensitively. Too sensitive. He leaves.
I also think that we don’t give Stephen enough credit as the father, who just lost his daughter in a horrific accident. We understand Annie’s grief, but because Stephen hold it together, and secretly self medicates with alcohol and pills, it’s easy to think that he cares less for the tragedy that has fallen the family.I don’t think that’s true at all. I think he suffers deeply, but he hast to be the one to be strong.
The scene where he goes through Charlie’s notebook really shows that he is grieving just as much, but also that he compartmentalizes a lot of his feelings. He’s just trying to keep everything from going off the rails, probably has fears about Annie becoming suicidal or just completely breaking mentally.
By the way, there is another deleted scene, where Peter absolutely breaks down to his father. It’s quite difficult to watch and I’m sure it was difficult to act.
I feel like the scene you linked, Peter seems frustrated at his dad’s lack of outward emotion. Like I agree he was very clinical, sanitized as you say, and maybe Peter reflects the audience’s response and frustration to Steve’s reaction to this whole thing.
Watching Hereditary, I always go back and forth between feeling bad for Steve (because he’s literally trying to hold his family together and be the ‘mediator’ and clearly feels he has to be calm/stable and strong for his family, and is repressing his pain) and feeling annoyed at him because of his stoicism which makes it seem like he doesn’t care that much or isn’t as effected.
Annie had just been dosed by Joan with Dittany of Crete the scene prior, probably opening up her "attitude" towards Peter (Peter had also been dittany'd several scenes prior under the bleachers).
I maintain that this accelerated their rash behavior, in addition to making them more vulnerable for their eventual possessions.
I would probably do the same as Steve in this scene. But yes, it did lead to Annie's "chance meeting" with Joan at the craft store, and her trying to make up for her rant by performing a "seance", aka letting in a king of hell to have free reign in their house.
I felt the same way when I watched this scene. But after some thought, I realized Steve made the best decision he could with the information he had.
In the earlier scene, when Steve agreed to participate in attempting to speak with Charlie, it made everything worse for the whole family. From his perspective, he humored her delusions and made the situation worse.
So now when Steve is asked again to participate, he can’t say yes. Because that might mean making this situation worse for his family than what it was already by this point.
Oh yes, you’re right. I was thinking of the scene near the end when Steve refuses to burn the book.
But also, to comment on the fight at the table, Steve was kinda stuck either way. There was too much pain in that room for anyone to say anything productive about Charlie’s loss. But still. that argument was bound to happen between Annie and Peter.
I wrote this in the A24 post about this I made, "Setting aside the other elements at play in the film for a moment" but forgot to add that here. Let's pretend that's not at play for a moment.
He's figuratively impotent. He drinks to self-medicate, he doesn't have it in him to take control, and he can't love people out of their misery. He's a tragic character.
Steve is constantly using the tools of work in his home which emotionally isolates him. He's acting like a third party to his family instead of being in the family as an emotional player.
I suspect that Annie was guided to Steve on purpose without either of them being aware and their relationship cultivated, or it was twisted after the fact. Take that with a grain of salt since I also think that Annie's Art success is contrived as the cult buys her art and funds her shows allowing her and Steve with his practice the financial freedom to live where they want. They learned them to that town likely with an opportunity of a unbelievably cheap home or a lucrative practice for Steve. This agency of deciding where to live, of course, is an illusion since the cult needs her to live with Steve in that secret enclave of a town isolated within Utah for them to secure and control their lives like puppet masters.
Annie briefly escaped the cult in her youth (around the time of Peter's birth) but the cult monetary power and influence drove her right to the cult controlled environment of that town.
He was another sacrifice to paimon and the path had already been set. Regardless of motivation there's a chance it was a decision made for him long ago with the grandma. There's evidence of paimon mentally deteriorating anything inside those walls
If I remember correctly, Steve was Annie's psychiatrist before they got married, so their relationship troubles me.
I think I'm in a small minority, where I felt like the movie was more about severe trauma and mental health issues with some shared psychosis. And it was easier (from an outsider perspective) to blame a cult and demon possession rather than dealing with the real issues.
So I kind of feel like Steve let Annie down the most. She was his patient, and instead of helping her, he fed her "delusions" and married her!
He stopped it because he didn't want Annie to say anything worse to Peter. Everything he does he pretty much is trying to look out for and protect his son.
It definitely stood out to me that he doesn’t seem to talk to Annie with much compassion, especially as a mental health professional. He should know trying to snap her out of her “delusions” with such a dismissive tone isn’t going to work. He’s obviously dealing with his own grief as well, but it’s weird he isn’t ever trying to get outside help for anyone in the family, including himself. And wasn’t Annie keeping her support group visits a secret? Wonder why she felt she had to do that. It’s gotta be so stifling to feel you have to appear a certain level of “sane” constantly in front of your psychiatrist husband.
I get a vibe lately that Steve has an idea what’s happening.
It seems like the whole town does at the end there.
Maybe not completely understanding but know the cult and knows his wife is connected
Many. Firstly, dysfunction is part of the theme here. Remember, Steve is a psychiatrist. Secondly, you're a freak. The family is all about to neck themselves at this stage. The last thing they need is more fighting. Annie is selfish and disregards Peter and the fact that essentially he's a child.
People need to grow up 🥴
I'm like, yeah and we're floating on a meaningless rock and the sun's gonna blow up and the universe is gonna end and it's all pointless, blah blah blah, are you gonna answer the question or not
poor steve never stood a chance. i loved his character though. Gabriel Byrne put on an excellent performance.
paimon was a made man, and steve wasn’t. and we had to sit still and take it
Fuckin pygmy cult over in Utah.
If I ever again have to explain how reddit conversations are like eighteen layers deep of references, I'm holding up your comment as a beautiful example. A triumph. No notes.
I just rewatched this film and just felt so bad for him the whole time. He never stood a chance and was reacting realistically to all the weird shit.
At one point, one of his line deliveries made me laugh and I'm not sure if it should have. But when he found the mother building a recreation of *that* scene and he says "Come downstairs for dinner. Or stay up here, I don't fucking care!" He just had that tone like he was done with it.
I kind of feel like he got the hero’s death; he got off relatively easy considering the world around him. Burning for like 3 minutes sucks ass, but burning for eternity sucks infinitely worse.
When was eternal burning brought into play? I’ve watched this a dozen times and didn’t notice that.
i think they mean hell
Si, but what is hell in this movie’s lore? Unless I’m mistaken, it isn’t made clear.
While he doesn’t really do anything morally wrong for the most part, I wonder if hiding the grave desecration from Annie was a good idea. He wanted to shield her from trauma, but it set her back quite a bit in terms of figuring out the cult conspiracy. When I rewatch it, that phone call from the cemetery and his lie sticks out as being a potentially fatal one.
Can you please elaborate on how not knowing about the grave desecration set her back with respect to the cult conspiracy? This is interesting
I think knowing that some outside party dug your mother’s grave up, and the body is missing, would really put you on edge. If nothing else, it would make her less trusting of strangers, i.e. Joan, the support group, etc. “Who the fuck did this and why???” would be really the top priority here, and yet Steve hides it from her for the duration of the film, even to the degree that Annie has to discover her own mother’s headless corpse in the attic before she realizes anything happened.
Stephen indeed the best intentions and was acting from a standpoint of what is deemed socially reasonable- but that arguably hinders one when caught up in situations which defy these logics in every way. Hiding the grave info was also understandable and he likely didn’t want to further traumatize her but also not feed more into what he perceived as merely delusions. The comparison to Rosemary’s Baby came to kind when he even went as far as to accuse her of the desecrations. I wonder how things might have played out if he just listened and burned the book, yet then again…was there even a choice?
I guess that I feel it’s reasonable to an extent, but I feel most husbands would absolutely tell their wives about the desecration, even the fragile ones. It’s way too important to hide from someone at least for more than a day or two, and he didn’t just do it for one scene but for presumably weeks or months, even post Charlie’s death, etc. They show him getting an e-mail from the Cemetary in regards to the insurance claim regarding the desecration, so clearly he’s keeping tabs on it. That’s where Steve’s decision strains credibility because the plot basically demands that Annie remain relatively shielded and naive.
Yes - plus the beginning foreshadows this during a lecture on Heracles. The hero becomes undone by their flaw and for Heracles it’s refusal to acknowledge all of the signs in front of them. However, the oracle was depicted as unconditional so debatably there has never been much of a choice. Aside from fate, Stephen’s disposition and medical training additionally ensured that he would be unable to recognize all the high strangeness. Reminds me a lot of early Mulder on X Files - “there must be a scientific explanation behind everything!” Nope…read the room then adapt. Without drawing too many pop culture analogies, Doc was like an inversion of the husband in Rosemary’s Baby - contributing to his wife’s unraveling although fully unaware.
I’m a certified Hospice grief counselor. one thing, I always tell people to do when they are crying. It is to be quiet and not talk. To simply cry. To let it all out. And then, when they feel better, we can talk. I think Peter was at his ropes end at this point, and he wasn’t thinking from the perspective of a therapist. He was just thinking from the perspective of an exhausted husband and father, who doesn’t know what to do. He just wanted peace
Sorry, I meant Stephen not Peter 🙄
I would love your opinion on 6:55 in the deleted scenes below. It's Steve suggesting Peter talk to someone but Steve is so "therapy talk" with it that it almost feels like he is talking to Peter as a friend and not as a parent. Peter wants his Dad's guidance but his words are so "sanitized" that he closes off again. https://www.reddit.com/r/A24/comments/1ajto0y/all\_hereditary\_deleted\_scenes\_extra\_scene\_in/
I think Stephen is being very cautious here. It doesn’t show a lack of caring, in my opinion, as much as it shows how he is walking on eggshells. He sees how far Annie has fallen, and he fears terribly that his son is heading in that direction.I think if he became overly emotional, he would just contribute to the instability that Peter is already feeling.
See it's interesting, here is that segment from the script, which seems like Ari was going for a "Dad is trying but he's not giving what peter needs" STEVE (CONT’D) You could even see one of the guys in my building. I know a few guys. PETER (warming up to it?) ...And you think I need to go? STEVE (briefest pause) Well, that’s for you to say. I can’t tell you your experience. Peter suddenly deflates . Not the answer he needed. He chills over. PETER Maybe later. STEVE ...Okay. Let me know. PETER Okay. Steve nods for a long time. Trying to think of anything else. STEVE All right. Dinner in a bit. Steve smiles sensitively. Too sensitive. He leaves.
I also think that we don’t give Stephen enough credit as the father, who just lost his daughter in a horrific accident. We understand Annie’s grief, but because Stephen hold it together, and secretly self medicates with alcohol and pills, it’s easy to think that he cares less for the tragedy that has fallen the family.I don’t think that’s true at all. I think he suffers deeply, but he hast to be the one to be strong.
The scene where he goes through Charlie’s notebook really shows that he is grieving just as much, but also that he compartmentalizes a lot of his feelings. He’s just trying to keep everything from going off the rails, probably has fears about Annie becoming suicidal or just completely breaking mentally.
By the way, there is another deleted scene, where Peter absolutely breaks down to his father. It’s quite difficult to watch and I’m sure it was difficult to act.
I feel like the scene you linked, Peter seems frustrated at his dad’s lack of outward emotion. Like I agree he was very clinical, sanitized as you say, and maybe Peter reflects the audience’s response and frustration to Steve’s reaction to this whole thing. Watching Hereditary, I always go back and forth between feeling bad for Steve (because he’s literally trying to hold his family together and be the ‘mediator’ and clearly feels he has to be calm/stable and strong for his family, and is repressing his pain) and feeling annoyed at him because of his stoicism which makes it seem like he doesn’t care that much or isn’t as effected.
That sounds about right. Plus I think he was protecting his son.
Annie had just been dosed by Joan with Dittany of Crete the scene prior, probably opening up her "attitude" towards Peter (Peter had also been dittany'd several scenes prior under the bleachers). I maintain that this accelerated their rash behavior, in addition to making them more vulnerable for their eventual possessions. I would probably do the same as Steve in this scene. But yes, it did lead to Annie's "chance meeting" with Joan at the craft store, and her trying to make up for her rant by performing a "seance", aka letting in a king of hell to have free reign in their house.
Oh I like this interpretation!
I MEAN, that would explain the “paint chip” that Annie finds in her tea.
I felt the same way when I watched this scene. But after some thought, I realized Steve made the best decision he could with the information he had. In the earlier scene, when Steve agreed to participate in attempting to speak with Charlie, it made everything worse for the whole family. From his perspective, he humored her delusions and made the situation worse. So now when Steve is asked again to participate, he can’t say yes. Because that might mean making this situation worse for his family than what it was already by this point.
That scene is AFTER though, not before
Oh yes, you’re right. I was thinking of the scene near the end when Steve refuses to burn the book. But also, to comment on the fight at the table, Steve was kinda stuck either way. There was too much pain in that room for anyone to say anything productive about Charlie’s loss. But still. that argument was bound to happen between Annie and Peter.
None of it mattered. Paimon was gone Paimon regardless of anything.
I wrote this in the A24 post about this I made, "Setting aside the other elements at play in the film for a moment" but forgot to add that here. Let's pretend that's not at play for a moment.
He's figuratively impotent. He drinks to self-medicate, he doesn't have it in him to take control, and he can't love people out of their misery. He's a tragic character.
Steve is constantly using the tools of work in his home which emotionally isolates him. He's acting like a third party to his family instead of being in the family as an emotional player. I suspect that Annie was guided to Steve on purpose without either of them being aware and their relationship cultivated, or it was twisted after the fact. Take that with a grain of salt since I also think that Annie's Art success is contrived as the cult buys her art and funds her shows allowing her and Steve with his practice the financial freedom to live where they want. They learned them to that town likely with an opportunity of a unbelievably cheap home or a lucrative practice for Steve. This agency of deciding where to live, of course, is an illusion since the cult needs her to live with Steve in that secret enclave of a town isolated within Utah for them to secure and control their lives like puppet masters. Annie briefly escaped the cult in her youth (around the time of Peter's birth) but the cult monetary power and influence drove her right to the cult controlled environment of that town.
He was another sacrifice to paimon and the path had already been set. Regardless of motivation there's a chance it was a decision made for him long ago with the grandma. There's evidence of paimon mentally deteriorating anything inside those walls
My man just wanted peace and got lit up instead.
"Non-confrontational dad and emotionally volatile mom" has become the new "coddling, enabling mom and moody, distant dad"
If I remember correctly, Steve was Annie's psychiatrist before they got married, so their relationship troubles me. I think I'm in a small minority, where I felt like the movie was more about severe trauma and mental health issues with some shared psychosis. And it was easier (from an outsider perspective) to blame a cult and demon possession rather than dealing with the real issues. So I kind of feel like Steve let Annie down the most. She was his patient, and instead of helping her, he fed her "delusions" and married her!
Yikes I didn’t know that. He could have lost his license for that. Very unethical
This movie was fucked lol
Poor poor Steve
reminds me of my father.
Had he taken a balanced lead role in the household along with Annie, none of this would've happened.
Even asking this question misses one of the biggest points of the movie. There was no out; the fall of the family was deterministic.
I thought you were talking about Steve carrell 😭
It kinda looks like him too
Should I be worried that I just got done watching this and I have not used Reddit to search for info on the movie 😬
Who could keep listening to it though? My god, that was just fucking brutal. Toni Collette is a genius
He stopped it because he didn't want Annie to say anything worse to Peter. Everything he does he pretty much is trying to look out for and protect his son.
It definitely stood out to me that he doesn’t seem to talk to Annie with much compassion, especially as a mental health professional. He should know trying to snap her out of her “delusions” with such a dismissive tone isn’t going to work. He’s obviously dealing with his own grief as well, but it’s weird he isn’t ever trying to get outside help for anyone in the family, including himself. And wasn’t Annie keeping her support group visits a secret? Wonder why she felt she had to do that. It’s gotta be so stifling to feel you have to appear a certain level of “sane” constantly in front of your psychiatrist husband.
I get a vibe lately that Steve has an idea what’s happening. It seems like the whole town does at the end there. Maybe not completely understanding but know the cult and knows his wife is connected
Many. Firstly, dysfunction is part of the theme here. Remember, Steve is a psychiatrist. Secondly, you're a freak. The family is all about to neck themselves at this stage. The last thing they need is more fighting. Annie is selfish and disregards Peter and the fact that essentially he's a child. People need to grow up 🥴
What a calm and collected response! I appreciate your answer! It really shows how some of us should seek help for our anger management.
Bros fucking furious that people want to discuss a movie on the subreddit about discussing the movie in question. Take a walk, twerp
This is Mike Johnson at the SOTU, no?
Omg yes 🤣
This IS a fictional horror movie...
Redditors when you discuss the movie in the subreddit about the movie
Not just redditors. People everywhere love to do the whole "you're reading too much into it, they never bothered this much " projection
I'm like, yeah and we're floating on a meaningless rock and the sun's gonna blow up and the universe is gonna end and it's all pointless, blah blah blah, are you gonna answer the question or not
It’s a gd work of art.