Midsommar star weighs in on horror film's divisive ending

Warning! This article contains HUGE spoilers for Midsommar.

If you’ve seen the just-released horror film Midsommar, there’s a fair chance you have strong thoughts about the horror film’s ending — and they may be very different from those of others who have experienced the second film from Hereditary writer-director Ari Aster.

In the movie, Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor play a young American couple named Dani and Christian who, despite the dysfunctional nature of their relationship, embark on a trip to a remote Swedish commune, with three friends. To say the trip doesn’t go well is putting things very mildly indeed. At the film’s conclusion, Dani is given the choice between offering up a local or the unfaithful Christian as a human sacrifice. Dani decides it is Christian who should die and Reynor’s character is burned to death inside a recently disemboweled bear.

The conclusion to the film has divided audiences, particularly as, while Christian may be terrible boyfriend, he is hardly the worst person in the world, and, to some viewers, seems undeserving of such a harsh fate.

“Some people would disagree with you [about Christian not being the worst person in the world],” says Reynor, with a laugh, when EW asks the actor to talk about the film’s conclusion. “I’ll preface it all by saying that, when we did the first public screening of the film in New York, we had a Q&A. I asked the audience for a show of hands: Who felt I deserved my fate in that film? And almost instantly, just under half [raised their hands], which I thought was really interesting. I don’t know whether that speaks to the nature of people being reactionary in the 21st century, the way they are. Maybe that’s to do with the culture of Twitter and Facebook. But, as you say, I don’t think he’s the worst person in the world. Certainly, he’s lacking in many departments, and he does some really shady s—, that’s not good. He’s emotionally unavailable to this person, to whom he has a responsibility, being in this relationship, having chosen to stay with her.

“But at the same time,” continues Reynor, “you’ve got to think of it from the perspective of, we’ve all been found lacking at times, in that way. He’s somebody who tries to do the right thing, but he isn’t the right person to do the right thing.”

Watch the trailer for Midsommar above.

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