Spoiler alert: spoilers for Midsommar and Gone Girl ahead
Yes, I am ranting/raving about this movie because I have THOUGHTS and OPINIONS. Again, trying to burn enough space so no actual spoilers accidentally get included in the preview of this post. I would give Midsommar a solid 6/7. The only reason it doesn't get a perfect score is because it does take some really weird turns, but they ultimately contribute to the plot of the movie.
First of all, the cast is largely no name, except for one of the characters. The same actor that played Chidi on The Good Place, William Jackson Harper, plays Josh, an anthropology graduate student doing his thesis over the Midsommar festival. The rest of the cast was pretty no name until Florence Pugh, Dani, got cast in the Black Widow movie as Yelena. Of course, she had a bunch of smaller parts leading up to this movie, but Midsommar really skyrocketed her to a level that even Marvel/Disney wanted to hire her.
That should be good enough. Now for the good stuff. There has been a lot of debate about if this film is a Good For Her movie. For anyone unaware, a good for her film is when the lead, a female, overcomes great turmoil with satisfying triumph, usually through means often deemed unsightly or violent. Typically, the woman in question will use methods often widely frowned upon to get accomplish her goal. A perfect example of this is Gone Girl, (spoilers ahead), where the lead fakes her own death and frames her husband.
While the film is about cult indoctrination and the primary goal is to indoctrinate the audience alongside Dani, it is still a Good for Her film. My reasoning behind this is because everyone focuses on Dani, but they pay little attention to her boyfriend. He forgot her birthday, and he only remembered when one of his friends reminded him after Dani mentioned it to him. To me, it feels disingenuous to ignore the role her boyfriend played in the cult. He was just as, if not more, indoctrinated than she was. She was simply elected the May Queen. He did the nasty with some random woman he doesn't even know and she caught him in the act. She then, when given the opportunity, burnt him to a crisp. Honestly, if I were in her shoes, I would have done the same. She got to get violent revenge on a man who broke her heart with exactly 0 negative consequences. I would have done the same thing.
Ladies think back to your most toxic, horrible ex. If given the opportunity to get revenge for all the wrongs he put you through, would you take it? That's what makes this a Good for Her film. Yes, she was indoctrinated into the cult, but he was indoctrinated more. People largely ignore the role he played in the film and focus solely on Dani. That doesn't sit right with me. If you're going to analyze the film as a cult indoctrination film, you need to look at everyone that was indoctrinated, not just Dani. If you look at it as a Good for Her movie, you can see the role cult indoctrination plays, but it does not operate within a vacuum. You have to consider the state of their relationship when they arrived in Sweden. If they had a healthy relationship upon arrival, there is a high chance that the movie would have ended very differently. They were already on the rocks. The boyfriend wanted to break up with Dani. He forgot Dani's birthday. He didn't even want Dani to go on that trip with them. If their relationship was not already on the rocks, on the brink of being in shambles, there is a good chance she would not have made the decision she made. Too often in movies like this do people focus solely on one character, often the female character and highly criticize her, while ignoring all of the factors leading to her behavior.
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