I know that disliking Midsommar is a death sentence in the horror community, but I didn’t like it. Saying I “didn’t care for it” is an understatement of how I felt. I’ve tried explaining my reasoning multiple times, but it always gets a negative response. Some people see it as an attack on them or their character. The reality is, I know people love this movie, I’m not trying to convince anyone to dislike it, and if you enjoy it, I’m happy for you. That’s fine. Not everyone will like every movie. That said, I’m going to explain why I didn’t like it. If you disagree, fair enough, but I won’t say I thought it was bad without explaining why.
The first thing I hated was the main character, Dani. She made me want to scream the entire time. I couldn’t relate to her at all. She seemed to have only two emotions: blank stare and crying. Not normal crying, though—it felt fake, like over-the-top, performative crying you see on social media for attention. There were several “dramatic” scenes like this that dragged on, which is probably why this movie is nearly three hours long. It’s bloated with pointless scenes and almost an hour (maybe more) of useless backstory and what some call “character building” that amounts to nothing.
Some argue this is a character-building technique, but it isn’t. All the characters are clichéd, stereotypical versions of their roles. Dani is the fragile trauma victim. Her boyfriend is the spineless loser who never stands up for himself. Dani is also toxic, using her boyfriend as a therapist after her family dies in a murder-suicide. To be fair, he should’ve stopped being a wimp and gotten her real help. Instead, he doesn’t, she cries constantly, and then guilt-trips her way into his group trip with friends to this Swedish Midsommar festival.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not complaining that a female character showed emotions. I’m fine with that. One of my favorite recent movies had a lead female who showed nothing but emotion. She cried, scream-cried, had rage fits, but also had humor, was down-to-earth, imperfect, and made mistakes. That character, Skye Riley in Smile 2, was someone you could empathize with and relate to. If anyone claims I disliked Dani because she cried, that’s not it. Dani seemed to do nothing but cry or stare blankly into the distance.
She wasn’t even supposed to go on the trip, and her boyfriend wanted to break up with her. He was about to before the murder-suicide but didn’t afterward, feeling it would abandon her. Dani should’ve seen the writing on the wall and left, but she couldn’t. Then we have the rest of the clichéd ensemble: the obnoxious frat guy who cares only about himself and the egotistical anthropology student who excuses any behavior to write his thesis on this cult no outsider has studied.
The last piece of this awful puzzle is the Swedish exchange student who invited them to the Midsommar festival. He’s the “pretty boy” or “Prince Charming,” fitting every cliché of that role—a guy to save Dani from her traumatic past and bring her to a new family that will accept her. Except that’s not true, because Dani gets brainwashed into a murder cult. It doesn’t make sense that she’d be indoctrinated in 3–4 days, maybe a week at most. They weren’t there long.
The movie takes over an hour for anything interesting to happen, and when it does, it’s just shock value for shock’s sake. At the Midsommar feast, two elderly people decide to die “with dignity” by jumping off a cliff. The man doesn’t die, so they smash his head with a mallet. Dani, her annoying friends, and another invited couple (whom we barely learn about) watch in horror, unprepared for this. Despite Dani’s horror (a third emotion for maybe five seconds before crying again), she’s easily convinced to stay, as if it didn’t happen. She seemed to want to leave, but when her friends downplay it, she agrees it’s “not a big deal” and does nothing.
After the only interesting moment in over an hour, there’s more of nothing. The anthropology student learns about sacred texts and an inbred cult member who can’t speak, considered a divine conduit for some reason. The frat guy pisses on a sacred tree, doesn’t care when told it’s offensive, and continues being obnoxious—you know he’s going to die. The other couple, freaked out by the cliff suicides, wants to leave and is shown “leaving,” but you know they won’t be allowed to.
The movie is so long, slow, and predictable. You know the anthropology student, told not to enter a sacred room, will break in and die. You know the frat guy who pissed on the tree will die. You can guess who’s going to die, what they’ll do, and how it’ll happen. Since they’re all insufferable college students, you almost want them to die. The worst part is that the one I wanted to die most—Dani—doesn’t.
Another issue is consent later in the movie. This cult’s commune is heavily inbred, but they bring in “new blood” annually for Midsommar to dilute the gene pool. A cult girl likes Dani’s boyfriend, who isn’t interested and finds her creepy, as do most of them. When Dani competes in the Midsommar queen dance, they take her boyfriend to a sacred lodge, drug him heavily, and the girl has sex with him to get pregnant. Dani, now the May Queen, finds him in the lodge, clearly drugged, surrounded by chanting naked elders. Instead of questioning this, she assumes he’s cheating.
This triggers another 10-minute cry-screaming session (maybe not that long, but it felt like it). The cult girls surround her, mimicking her crying, which is annoying and overlong. I get why it’s done—to show they’re her “family” feeling her pain—but it’s still obnoxious. Then Dani, without questioning anything, decides her boyfriend and his friends must die by fire because she’s the May Queen and has her “new family.” Yay.
This is hailed as a feminist triumph, but it’s not. Being brainwashed into a cult isn’t strong or intelligent. The cult sees women as breeders, and Dani, as “new blood,” will be reduced to that. That’s not a happy ending or a victory. Her boyfriend, unable to consent to the sex, doesn’t get to explain because Dani’s too self-centered to care. Why do people gloss over this? He wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t cheat intentionally.
Even if I could ignore all this (I can’t), how is this cult operating in 2019? If this were the ’70s or ’80s, maybe, but not now. Every year, seven outsiders go to this Swedish festival and don’t return—six die, one joins the cult, or maybe all die. This has gone on for years, per the Swedish guy. No one questions it? No investigations? In 2019, authorities would notice a pattern of seven people vanishing annually for Midsommar. This cult would’ve been shut down in the ’90s or 2000s.
I can’t buy into this movie. I don’t get the hype or why it’s called a feminist story or a “happily ever after” because Dani “found her family.” I lost the plot and won’t regain it. I know I’m in the minority, but my opinion won’t change. I appreciate people explaining it, but it doesn’t work for me. If you enjoyed Midsommar, don’t let my opinion sway you, but understand it’s not the perfect gem some claim—not for everyone.