Midsommar ending explained: Ari Aster has said what Dani's final smile means to him
Ari Aster has been answering questions about the last shot of Midsommar since 2019, and his reading of it is neither the comforting one nor the one Florence Pugh gives. What the film's final image was built to do.
Midsommar ends on Florence Pugh's face and refuses to cut away from it. Ari Aster has been asked about that shot for seven years, and his answers have never been the tasteful ones.
His position, stated repeatedly since the film's release on 3 July 2019, is that the ending is meant to feel good and then curdle. He described it to Entertainment Weekly in 2019 as perverse wish fulfilment, and as a kind of catharsis he hoped audiences would cheer at first and argue with themselves about afterwards. In his script, the direction for the final shot says a smile breaks onto Dani's face — she has surrendered to "a joy known only by the insane".
What she's actually watching
The closing ceremony requires nine sacrifices. Four outsiders lured in by Pelle and his brother Ingemar: Mark, Josh, Simon, and Connie. Four from the Hårga: the two elders who threw themselves off the cliff earlier in the week, plus volunteers Ingemar and Ulf. The ninth is the May Queen's pick.
Dani's options are Christian, who has spent the film neglecting her and has just been filmed having sex with Maja, or a randomly selected villager. She picks Christian. He is paralysed, sewn into a hollowed-out bear, and placed in the yellow temple with the rest. The Hårga members going in have been drugged against fear. Christian has not.
As the temple burns, the commune mimics Ulf's screaming. Dani sobs with them, steadies, and smiles.
Aster's reading
He has been consistent that the ending is designed as a trap for the audience.
Aster told SlashFilm in 2019 that he was going for a "toxic catharsis" — the film spends two hours aligning you with one half of a couple, then punishes the other half in a way that should catch in your throat about a week later.
He also said he finds himself laughing at the last sequence, which is a useful thing to know before anyone declares the film humourless. And to Filmmaker Magazine that same year, he framed the whole thing as a fairy tale: Dani loses a family at the start and gains one at the end. That, structurally, is a happy ending.
Pugh disagrees
In a 2024 Wired video, Pugh said her version differs from Aster's. Her Dani is disoriented rather than triumphant — a woman who has lost herself entirely, with the smile arriving as a symptom rather than a decision. Both readings are supported by what's on screen, which is presumably the point.
Does the director's cut change it?
No. The extended version runs 171 minutes against the theatrical 147 and adds a brutal cliffside argument between Dani and Christian, plus more Hårga ritual. The last shot is identical.
For the record: the Hårga's festival runs on a ninety-year cycle. Anyone hoping for a sequel is looking at a 2109 release date.
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