Horror Actressing: Florence Pugh in "Midsommar"
Monday, December 9, 2019 at 3:00PM by Jason Adams
There is a lot of bodily violence seen on-screen in Ari Aster's Midsommar -- a certain mallet comes to mind. But nowhere at any point did I wince harder than I did during a scene simply involving two people having a conversation in a college dormitory. I often reference the moment that the little ghoul girl crawls through the television screen in Ringu as being the apex of cinematic revulsion for me -- that I very nearly crawled backwards up and over my seat the first time I saw that. Midsommar's dorm scene dropped the same sensation, just emotionally...
Watching any wisps of will within poor Dani (Florence Pugh) evaporate so easily, under the slightest hint of friction from her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) who is very clearly in the wrong having hidden his summer travel plans from her, is excruciating stuff. And it's excruciating stuff because of how willing an an accomplice Pugh shows Dani to be in her own destruction -- there's not a second of resistance; Pugh's like an ice cube tossed into a blast furnace. She disintegrates zero to sixty.
We've all been there to some degree and that's why it works, but Pugh -- and Aster's script -- whittle these worst impulses down to a microscopically fine point, so needle sharp the horror of it's already several inches deep before you can even consider any scramble backwards, away from what's too late to see happening, it's happened. Dani's undoing, her house of cards collapse, took my breath away, and as it did I looked to my left and saw that those co-conspirators, this divine actress and director pairing, had already set my lungs nice and clean-like on the table beside me before I could whisper a...
Reader Comments (8)
"whittle these worst impulses down to a microscopically fine point, so needle sharp the horror of it's already several inches deep before you can even consider any scramble backwards"
I love the way you analyze cinema and share your experience with the readers. In three paragraphs you depurate much of what made the film unforgettable, its painful aftershocks and games of emotional revulsion. It's a beautiful film and, as always, it's beautiful writing. Thank you for the great work.
Thank you for the kind words Cláudio Alves! Very touching.
LOVE this performance (and movie)! She's currently my favorite lead actress of the year.
Florence Pugh was brilliant in Midsommar and this piece captured that brilliance to a microscopically fine point. Bravo!
She was superb in that movie. I myself find myself a lot in her position these days, except for the crazy cult anyway.
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This film overall didn't do a ton for me, but the first 20 min or so were fantastic, up until the brilliant cut to the airplane (bathroom I think?). I was happily putting "Hereditary" behind me in my assessment of Aster. Pugh is largely why that first section worked so well for me. Her and the writing. This scene is a great example of both.
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