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In just the past few years, director Ari Aster has delivered some truly scary movies, some of which rank alongside the best horror films of all time. His second feature film, Midsommar, had similar vibes to Hereditary (his first motion picture), as both offered twisted tales featuring characters being consumed by the unsettling worlds they entered. That’s certainly true of Florence Pugh’s Dani, the protagonist of Aster’s 2019 effort. The A24 film’s lead is now offering up her own interpretation of the movie’s fiery ending.
A “beautiful nightmare,” as Florence Pugh described, the film tracks Dani, as she accompanies her boyfriend and others on a visit to a cult in Sweden. The wild ending of Midsommar sees Dani being named the Hårga’s May Queen, who must choose the ninth sacrifice to rid the twisted group of evil. Covered in colorful flowers with that memorable frown on her face, Dani chooses her partner, Christian, after catching him in a sexual ritual. He’s then stuffed in a disemboweled bear’s body and forced to become enflamed in the wooden temple with eight other members.
Florence Pugh shared her take on that twisted ending while answering questions with Andrew Garfield — who she starred alongside in the 2024 movie release We Live in Time — for the WIRED Autocomplete Interview. She acknowledged the common belief that the character is having a “psychotic break” in that moment, but went on to say that she believes there’s more to it:
So I have a different version to Ari, the director. The idea is that she’s now gone through a psychotic break. From the moment she chooses, I believe accidentally, Christian, her boyfriend, to get burnt, she keeps on waking up and going back into this like psychotic break and when that moment at the end happens, where everything is going up in flames, I tried to embody what I was like when I was five on Bonfire Night. And just how exciting it was to see flames, and I wanted to revert back to a very, very small and simple life of how simple things made and make children feel. Because in that moment, I presumed she wasn’t there anymore.
It’s true that after Dani suffered the loss of her sister and parents due to carbon monoxide poisoning, she felt lost. You could tell even through her interaction with Christian, who she was in a horrible toxic relationship with, that he could hardly comfort her when she needed it most. After the Hårga cult gave Dani comfort in her tears, even if it was all in mimicry, she felt a sense of belonging there and not knowing where else to turn to.
When seeing that child-like smile on Dani’s face while she watches the temple burning — with her boyfriend in it — one could get the sense that she’s consumed in the Swedish cult and no longer connected to reality. And, yes, you can argue that Dani is experiencing a psychotic break, in which what looks disturbing to us appears beautiful in her eyes.
While I understand Florence Pugh’s interpretation, I’m leaning more towards Ari Aster’s ending interpretation. The Falling actress believes Dani didn’t know what she was doing by picking Christian as the final sacrifice, feeling that she was more distracted by the fire going up as opposed to doing anything “sinister.”
The Beau is Afraid director said he was inspired to write the movie after experiencing a breakup. He seems to believe in his “perverse, wish-fulfillment fantasy” that Dani was fully aware of what was happening to Christian after being engulfed in flames at the temple. Even if Florence Pugh disagrees with her director’s interpretation, it appears that her vision for her character was what she needed to make the horror film’s ending all the more effective, and I would say it did the trick. You can watch her and Andrew Garfield’s interview in full below:
Regardless of how fans interpret the ending, I think most would agree that Florence Pugh is amazing in the Ari Aster flick. Through her performance, she perfectly conveys that the Dani viewers see at the end of the movie is far removed from the person they met at the start of the movie. Needless to say, this is one of A24’s best horror films, and both Pugh and Ari Aster deserve their flowers for putting in the work.
If you dare to revisit it, Midsommar — one of the ‘10s best movies — is available to watch on your Max subscription. You can also watch Florence Pugh in the 2024 movie release of We Live in Time with limited showtimes in theaters now.