*TRIGGER WARNING! Suicide, mental illness, sensitive topics 

*SPOILERS  of the movie Midsommar. Do not read unless you've watched the movie!

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​Part One- Character Analysis! 

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Midsommar starts by ripping open your chest (or mine, at least) as you watch an already unstable young woman (Florence Pugh)  endure the devastating loss of her entire immediate family due to her sisters instability, who commits suicide along with killing their mother and father in the process. Dani, the main character, has a boyfriend who is annoyed by her, and discusses wanting to break things off in the beginning of the movie, before Dani's sister commits. This is foreshadowing to him being an absent and disinterested partner, who obviously stays with Dani due to her recent losses and need for someone during that time, which is respectable yet also the bare minimum in a relationship where you care about the other person, whether it is romantic for him at this point or not. 

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Dani, the main character, is a fierce and brave young woman who battles severe depression and suffers greatly throughout the film.  She deals with a recent traumatic loss of her immediate family members including her sister and both parents. Dani additionally suffers within her relationship with Christian, played by Jack Reynor, since she is clinging to their relationship while he is emotionally not invested and seemingly disinterested in the film regarding his girlfriend when he is with anyone else besides Dani. The sadness and tragedy of her character and she not only witnesses these devastating events, but also continues to fall victim to a cult that Pelle tricks their friend group into vacationing to when they host their festival. Based on the acts of the locals and some of their rituals and behaviors, I believe they were luring these young people in so that they could have strong genes for breeding. Dani is also very susceptible to the emotional and mental attacks that a cult puts a person through, which is also a very sad clue that the ending of this movie results in her residing in this cult where she feels like she has a family, rather than ever escaping and getting therapy or living a life outside of Sweden. Though I do love the plot twists and deranged nature of the revenge taken on Christian, I would have loved for her to have the chance to confront him for everything she had endured in their relationship, though I know this is not something always possible. 

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Pelle, played by Wilhelm Blomgren is a a cunning and manipulative scout for his home town, and meticulously calculates a group that might not be too terribly missed if they were to go missing in America, or remain in Sweden. While he appears sweet when initially speaking with Dani and apologizing for her situation, he watched her need to break down when discussing her recent losses and realized how easy it might be to convince her to stay in Sweden. 

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Christian, Dani's boyfriend in the movie, is a complex character. While the audience is given repeated reasons to hate him, it is arguable that he receives a fate unbefitting his karmic deserving. Though I personally am a Christian hater to my bones, I am going to attempt to be as biased as possible when examining him on a psychological and moral level. Every character has good and bad, and I will examine the elements of each for Christian. His good aspects include remaining with Dani due to her recent losses, which could be argued to be a con since he was prolonging a relationship he was not committed to. He also offered not to take hallucinogens with the group when Dani announced that she was going to wait and get her bearings when they first arrived in Sweden, though they ultimately did end up accepting, and this is also sadly a con listed below which I will explain in further detail. While Christian is just a regular guy stuck in a relationship he is unhappy with that many can relate to, I am not sure that his actions morally align with those of a good person. 

Some of the bad aspects of Christian include saying horrible things about his girlfriend to his closest friends when they all hung out together regularly, cheating on her, and using her emotionally vulnerable state to get her to do things he wanted to do simply because she was scared that he would leave. An example of this is when their host, Pelle, gives them hallucinogens to try upon arriving in his home country of Sweden for a festival that is called Midsommar, hence the name. At this point, Christian has committed to Dani to the point of allowing her to come along on their trip to Sweden. Christian allows Dani to take the drugs knowing she is in a vulnerable state after her recent devastating losses and takes them as well, preventing him from being any sort of help if she needed it during that time. He also attempts to steal a very important research topic from his friend Josh played by William Jackson Harper, rather than accepting that his friend had initially planned to research the culture long before they left for the trip.

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​Dani's sister is also a crucial character to this movie, as without her there would potentially be no need to take a trip out of the country since Dani would have family to stay in America for. Dani's sister's name is Terri, and she kills both herself and their parents using carbon monoxide poisoning. In the beginning of the movie, Dani is calling her family members desperately, worried since she had not heard from her sister recently. We learn as the audience that Dani seems to be very involved in the mental wellbeing of her sister and family, as she regularly checks in with her parents regarding her sister, while also having regular contact with her sister. This sudden loss of such a large part of Dani's life is sure to be triggering and upsetting to Dani as she attempts to navigate this new life without the three people she was the closest with. 

I think the darkness from this loss in Dani's life initiated by her sister's actions foreshadow and have a role in the dark path that opens for Dani later on as she is emotionally vulnerable and more susceptible to Pelle and his family in Sweden. 

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I hope you enjoyed this Part One Character Analysis Breakdown! Please share your thoughts and let me know if you agree with my character breakdown, and tell me who your favorite character was! 

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