Midsommar (2019)
To truly understand and appreciate my admiration for Florence Pugh, we need to start with a discussion on Midsommar (2019). Director Ari Aster's second film release, following closely another A24 masterpiece Hereditary (2018), Midsommar was created on a reduced timeline relying heavily on the success of Hereditary. Despite the limitations, Aster created what is widely considered one of the greatest horror movies of the 21st Century. Innovative and shocking, this display of discombobulation and discomfort is the most unsettling and disturbing film I've ever watched - in the best way possible.
Following Dani Ardor and her boyfriend Christian on a trip to Sweden with friends, the film dives into Dani's grief after losing her sister, mother, and father, in a gruesome murder/suicide. The friends pack up to head to a small Swedish village to learn more about the national celebration of 'Midsommar' and the local traditions and festivals, where they soon learn that just because the sun barely sets does not mean they are free from things that go bump in the night.
Opening strong with a shot of this magnificent mural (right) Aster immediately tells us what to expect from this story. From the death of her family, her relationship woes with Christian, all the way to the dance of the Flower Queen, it is all spelled out in colour for those of us willing to look.
With it made clear from Christian's friends that they do not want Dani to join them on their trip to Sweden, Christian (without a backbone) refuses to tell her not to come and instead invites her along for their group trip in what can only assume is an attempt to cheer her up.
The group arrives not long after and the events of the festival begin to unravel. Over the course of the trip, Christian proves himself spineless and without much value in Dani's life. Both forgetting her birthday, the first of which is without her family, and beginning a flirtation with another young woman from the local village, who we later see him engaging with in a ‘mating ritual’. To avoid discussing every single plot point, the summary here is that Christian gets exactly what’s coming to him.
Throughout her stay we see Dani find herself as part of the local community, with one of the village patriarchs even welcoming her by saying “Welcome home”, the only one of the group to get anything more than a brief but polite “Welcome”. In Hårga, Dani finds a new family, who care for her and support her when she witnesses Christian’s infidelity, and later demise. A newfound family, that provides a network of care and love that Dani so desperately craved after the loss of her biological family. Hårga welcomes Dani into their hearts and in turn, Dani becomes one of them. Though her grief doesn’t vanish, and the gaping hole in her heart still bleeds every day, the small village helps to keep her afloat and offers guidance and care where Christian so clearly has been failing.
One of the more fascinating elements of this film is how Dani deals with her loneliness and feelings of isolation within her traveling company and life in general. Not there to study the festivities like Christian and Josh, not a local like Pele, and not there to seduce the local women like Mark, Dani makes her own journey in the village. Joining in more and more with the local women, Dani begins to form a close friendship with these women, helping them make the food for the feasts while the men are elsewhere, and joining in with the May Queen dance. The only one of the Americans that has actually made any effort at all to learn about Sweden, by learning the Swedish word for thanks and a few other valuable phrases, Dani seems to be the only one in her company that cares for the locals and their traditions.
What Aster manages to achieve, rather brilliantly, is that we as an audience are happy for Dani at the end of the movie. She’s no longer with her terrible cheating boyfriend, she has a new home and support system, even a potential new suitor in the form of Pele. So we choose to ignore the giant elephant in the room, or bear is perhaps more appropriate. While Dani settles into village life, her traveling companions are selected one by one to participate in a ritualistic sacrifice in the final act of the story, the culmination of which leads to Dani choosing whether she saves Christian or a different local from the final sacrifice. With Christian physically incapacitated, Dani makes a choice that as an audience we can’t help but support. Surrounded by her new family and friends, Dani seals Christian’s fate, volunteering him to be encased in a bear carcass and burnt alive in the sacrificial temple along with some of their companions and others involved in the festivities. As we watch Christian, in the bear suit, get burned alive and the wooden temple become engulfed in flames, we turn to see Dani, with a glorious smile on her face.
This performance from Pugh was exquisite, from her open and raw honesty as a grieving young woman to her arguments with Christian and her place in the relationship, Pugh delivers a relatable performance that gets the audience well and truly on her side. Indoctrinated into a cultish commune she may have been, but we can’t help but say “Good for her”.
