Florence Pugh was ‘raw and exhausted’ after ‘awkward’ Midsommar crying scene

Ari Aster’s 2019 horror movie was described as ‘one of the strangest films of the year’

Florence Pugh has reflected on one of the defining moments in Ari Aster’s 2019 horror film Midsommar.

The scene in question features Pugh’s Dani Ardor screaming and crying alongside a group of women from the Harga commune.

Dani has just seen her boyfriend (played by Jack Reynor) having sex with another woman from the commune, and it unleashes all her rage and grief.

In an Instagram post this week, Pugh shared a picture of the moment they wrapped the scene, writing: “We all looked at each other before we started rolling and knew it would be hard. And awkward. And strange. And unnatural. We knew it wouldn’t be pleasurable.

“But by the end we were all in each other’s laps and crying and allowing our bodies to keep heaving."

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She added: “I knew I would never be so open and so raw and so exhausted like I was that day ever again, I can hope at least…

“Scenes that make you hurt, or cringe, or turn away from the screen when watching, are scenes that were designed to make you, for ten seconds at least, the most human. But for us, it was hours. Beautiful, hard, proud hours.”

In a four-star review for The Independent, critic Clarisse Loughrey called Midsommar “one of the year’s strangest, most distressing, and most memorable films”.

She wrote: “Aster’s MO is to throw convention out of the window. Again, much like his previous film (specifically, Toni Collette’s explosive breakdown at the dinner table), there are traces of morbid humour, but these are tense, uncomfortable laughs – the kind that unintentionally burst out when we’re faced with the incomprehensible…

“It’s a little punishing to audiences, but it’s filled with ideas, images, and feelings that will stay with you long after the credits roll. And it’s worth every second.”