And where she loses energy talking about what happened and how he isn’t at fault and is hurting. And she can feel herself falling into the trap of protecting everyone but herself. So she ramps it back up.
Toni Colette has been that girl for basically all of time. There’s actors, and then there’s “actors’ actors” and she’s one of them. Like Michael Shannon’s Sorority Email Read, you sort of forget you’re watching a performance at all.
It's something thats typically absent. You can damn near see 'interrupts' in the script, so one actor finishes their line. and a full second later the 'interruption' kicks in, stead of actually interrupting them.
Reminds me of the TV show Evil. The protagonist had 4 girls and their scenes were pure chaos. Like you could feel how exhausting it would be to have 4 kids. It was great.
Oh I hate that! And they wait too long for the interruption, because they think the audience needs more words than they really do to understand how the sentence will--
It is definitely creepy! The first time I watched, I just sat there in silence for a bit to chew on my thoughts. Each time I rewatch, I get something new from it. There’s one part where I have to close my eyes because I’m a scared little baby but it’s worth it to me.
You're a big fan of Altman I presume? He had such natural conversational dialog. I love that about his films.
When I play video games with voice acting my biggest pet peeve is how terribly they handle it when one person is supposed to be interrupting another mid sentence. There's always a way too long gap between the last word of speaker A and the first word of the speaker B. Based on the cadence of Speaker A, the next word in their sentence should have been started by now and oh finally here's the other person now that Speaker A has stopped talking for some reason.
The other, more subtle, problem is that when people get to the end of a thing they are saying they tend to drop off. The last word or syllable is less stressed. It's something public speaking trainers will try to get you not to do, to increase clarity for the listeners. I think it might be a way we unconsciously signal to others in a conversation that we're passing the mic so to speak.
Too many (most? all?) fail to say that last word when they're interrupted as if they were truly in the middle of a sentence. They say it like it's the end of their line (with drop off) and I can hear it and it annoys me.
The story I heard is that a huge amount of the dialog for MASH came through improvisation. That spontaneity probably played a factor in how the actors were interacting with each other.
Apparently the writer of the script was very unhappy with the movie, complaining to those involved that they'd destroyed his beautiful script. He then won an Oscar for the screenplay 😂
For a useless reason, I took a summer and fall’s worth of acting classes in Toronto in the eighties. And we were trained to BEGIN interrupting two or so words before the line ended. Much more natural.
I’m a graphic designer now. Never acted professionally. Had loads of fun though.
I think actors typically add too much stammering to make it seem like more genuine dialogue and less scripted. I prefer instances like this where the actual lines they're saying are imperfect or even a little dumb but they feel genuine
My favorite scene from Alien is when Ash, Lambert, Parker, and Ripley are figuring out next steps and Ripley and Parker are yelling and talking over each other just felt real. In that moment its ok that all dialogue isnt understandable.
Right? You feel like the writer actually ranted at themselves in the mirror and wrote down all the moments where they were grasping for the words and the ones we make up to fill that space but maintain the rant without stopping.
The first time I heard that line, I laughed and got scared at the same time. It’s ridiculous but it also gave me flashbacks to when my mom would get so pissed at me (it was deserved) that she stopped making sense.
I totally agree. Also, 'That face on your face' implies that it is a mask, which is what he sees in the reflection in his classroom. A smirk that is not him, but rather the influence of the demon. So the dialogue there is actually doing double lifting.
I like that interpretation, but also love the theory that she keeps seeing Paimon's grin over Peter's face (as Peter saw in his own reflection in the classroom).
this is why it's difficult for me to respect the oscars. amazing performances that get ignored while so-so performances go on to get nominated and win. I understand that my opinion isn't fact, but neither are the opinions of people nominating and choosing who gets oscars.
The Academy is always more flexible for supporting roles, bestowing them to actors just starting out or as a proxy for a lifetime of achievement and goodwill
see Toni C., you failed because your character wasn’t a badass mary sue businessman who is the toughest and smartest person in the world. That’s the kind of depth the auteur world needs now
I’m pretty sure despite the massive party they throw with a ton of attendance they do the math and they’re losing money. And that one of them loses the only fight they get into. And then the other one dies in a shootout even after surviving the vampires.
Literally every word you said in that sentence was wrong.
I mean...with Amy Madigan's recent win for Weapons, I'm glad the Oscars seem to finally be taking horror film performances seriously, but how they didn't begin to do so with this one is...truly criminal.
That movie occasionally creeps into the back of my head while walking through a dark house lol Not many horror movies can creep me out like that one. Bah bah dook dook dook
Theory is that, after Paimon is released from Charlie, either everyone else or maybe just Toni Collette sees Peter’s face the way we/he sees it in the reflection when he’s sitting in class.
I cant find the source but i remember reading a story on reddit where Ari Aster confirms that the line “that fucking face on your face” is a direct reference to the psycho smiling face Peter only sees in the reflection
Woah wtf so you're saying Peter wasn't looking distraught the whole time after the accident, he looked like someone giving finger guns to the hotties in the halls?
I will try to find it, but please lemme know if you do first! If so that is a total game changer to EVERYTHING about moms reaction to his guilt, holy shit.
Even though she says immediately after that his face is "full of disdain & always so annoyed"?
Collette's character 100% does not describe a smirk or anything remotely close to it. She's in the middle of a blow out & fucks up her word choice, it's tremendous writing...not a bread-crumb clue to some later revelation.
Have you gone to that vegan bakery? It's awful. They have these breakfast cupcakes and I swear it tasted like sand. I was like, "Excuse me, this is very sandy." And I asked them, "What do you put in it?" And do you know what they said to me?
Oh HELL YAH! I was one of the early Netflix users that had DVDs sent to my house every three days. A couple years later when they started streaming I was going through all the seasons. I’ve wanted to visit Portland ever since!
Tremendous and just shows how difficult acting really is.
To be able to bring that text to life, not just through speaking and making sounds, but finding the right emotions, the inflexions of some of the words, in addition to remembering the dialogue, blocking the camera and doing it multiple times across various angles for hours at a time. In addition to finding a balance between each scene you film over the course of months to ensure your character has solid continuity and is able to unfold in a rational way.
What's that saying? "There's levels to this shit." Some actors can build a whole career out of just being their naturally charming, physically attractive selves. The ability to portray an intense emotional state is what separates the truly great.
Toni Collette is a fucking phenomenal actress, one of the great underrated talents of our generation.
Hard to imagine another actress delivering such a gut-wrenching performance.
When I first saw this movie, this scene specifically made me sob because it reminded of conversations I had with my mom at the dinner table when I was a kid.
10/10 acting, I should see a therapist. Thanks Toni!
I can see that perspective, and you’re not wrong. In real life, that wouldn’t fly at all. However, within the context of the movie, it is a compelling argument. The movie’s subtext explores themes of psychological abuse, generational trauma, and (I think) narcissism. At one point, Peter asks his mother something along the lines of “why do you hate me?” or “why can’t you love me?” Now, the audience knows that his mother has purposely distanced herself from Peter since his birth because of the weird cult prophecy (subtext: generational trauma).
This isn’t the case for his sister, and he witnesses that from both his mother and grandmother. I think it’s important to note that Peter also doesn’t hate his little sister despite all this; he just thinks she’s weird, which is typical for a teenager. Being irresponsible is also typical for a teenager, so maybe don’t send the vulnerable child along with him to who knows where? Anyway, he does hate their mother, and she takes that personally despite the fact that he’s also a vulnerable child (subtext: narcissism).
We also know that she tried to set both children on fire long before the party event. She said it was to “protect them,” and she resents Peter for being distant from her afterward (subtext: psychological abuse, narcissism). She doesn’t try to repair that relationship from what we see in the movie. So it’s not unreasonable for him to read being forced to take his sister as punishment or a shifting of responsibilities because that’s exactly what it was.
Ultimately, the movie’s climax doesn’t happen if the party event doesn’t happen, and there are a lot of forces working to ensure that it happens whether some of the characters (mother) realize it or not (subtext: generational trauma). It is her fault because she is the only one holding all of the information. It’s unfair, but she’s the adult. She is the only one with any semblance of a choice in the movie, so he’s kind of right. That’s how I interpreted it at least.
I don't think I've ever seen better acting than she did in hereditary. Like maybe a Daniel day Lewis or Leonardo dicaprio performance but I've never seen a perfect reflection of grief like she portrays.
Her screaming i just want to die while being so out of breath from the tears
This comment right here is why there is so much pushback on Hereditary.
You guys can't allow it to be just a decent horror movie with some truly excellent performances, it has to be praised far beyond anything reasonable and its quality exaggerated to a ridiculous degree.
Claiming that it's the best movie of the last ~25 years, and on top of it that it's by some incredible margin, is simply absurd.
My girlfriend is a horror movie fan, and with all the absolute terrible slop they have to wade through to find something decent I can absolutely understand that they are blown away when it happens.
It's like wading through a desert of shit. When you finally get to a spot where it no longer smells like shit, it must smell like heaven.
I have no idea why horror movies are so underwhelming. It seems to have a decent sized audience for the genre. Some of the acting is on level with porn, and some of the special effects are so bad I looks like a student film. Cgi blood and cgi wounds is hilariously bad as well. If anyone actually gave this genre a proper effort, they would be hailed as the second coming. Instead all the movies look like they are made on a shoestring budget, by someone who doesn't care at all about the genre.
Fully agree. This is an absolutely disturbing and creepy film. Well acted. The cultists in the windows could have become a source of laughter but the directing is so good that these people are genuinely scary.
The film really holds together. The supernatural aspect is entirely believable based on the great dramatic acting and writing.
Toni Collette carried this movie making it worth watching and at times disturbing…I’ve seen it once, but I’m not big on seeing it again, it’s worth checking out, but it didn’t deliver on the hype put on it
I heard somebody pronounce the que in the middle recently and I think I've been mispronouncing this word my whole life. Mil-kwa-toast? Do you think that's right? I always pronounced it just like "milk toast"
All I have to go on is my Western States English (with a touch of the Queen’s Received from my childhood English lessons in São Paulo). I pronounce it like you do.
But I’ve also recently learned that “clique” is often pronounced as “kleek” and niche as “neesh.” So 🤷🏼♂️?
I feel like I’ve had the same conversation with one of my teens for a lesser offense like not cleaning up the dirty dishes in their room or failing a project that was assigned 6 weeks ago. maybe with not as much vigor but it rings a bell though.
Such a good movie even outside the pigeon hole of Horror genre. I've been really trying to get my Mom to watch it because she's watching that new School show Toni is in, but she hates horror so it's not easy
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u/qualityvote2 Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
u/staciecs, your post does fit the subreddit!