“I wrote this when I was going through a break up,” said writer-director Ari Aster as he introduced the finished cut of Midsommar to its first New York public screening back in June, “I’m better now.” Judging from what ensues in the film, much of Aster’s healing comes at the expense of the character Christian, played by Jack Reynor. As the emotionally distant romantic partner of Florence Pugh’s Dani, Christian bears the brunt of the film’s rage once his girlfriend becomes empowered to confront her past and present traumas through the rituals and traditions of a small Swedish village they visit.
Aster’s sophomore feature certainly doesn’t lack for that uneasy tension between hilarity and horror—spawned by fraught, complicated relationship dynamics—that marked Hereditary. As Pugh’s performance strengthens in tenacity over the course of the film, only Reynor’s fully realized portrayal of Christian stands in the way of total audience alignment with Dani’s retributive awakening. Instead of letting his character become a simplistic villain to draw our ire, he plays Christian in such a way that frustrates rather than outright antagonizes.
Midsommar has all the trappings of a major breakout for the American-Irish Reynor, thanks to his nuanced rendering of contemporary masculinity. The character fuses the sensibilities he’s honed across a range of productions from studio fare like Transformers: Age of Extinction and Delivery Man to mid-budget American indies like Detroit and On the Basis of Sex, though the 27-year-old’s best preparation may have come from playing tortured young Irish men in homegrown fare like What Richard Did and Glassland.
It’s been a whirlwind for Reynor to process the wide swath of reactions sparked by Christian. He and the rest of the cast first saw Midsommar just a day before A24 began screening it before crowds, and, as he expressed, some of the fervent responses caught him off guard. I talked with Reynor over the phone a week later to discuss how he approached playing such a polarizing character and what he’s learned from the audience’s feedback. We discuss plot points from the third act in generalities, but those looking to avoid any spoilers for Midsommar might want to bookmark and return to this interview after seeing the film.
I was in a Q&A where you asked the audience if they thought Christian deserved his fate, but I couldn’t see in the frame how they voted. What was the verdict?
I think almost half the people put up their hands instantly, in a very tellingly reactionary fashion. [laughs] It was really interesting.
Is that what you were expecting?
It wasn’t what I was expecting, but I think I should have been expecting it. I think it says more about me that I wasn’t expecting it than it does about them. It’s an interesting one, because my feeling about this movie is that I’m okay whether you feel like Christian deserves it or not, it’s fine. But it needs some real thought. Ultimately, the reason I wanted to do the movie was because I felt like this character was not one-dimensional. Ari never wanted him to be that way. Both of these characters represent the human condition, the things we can all relate to, in all of our relationships, be it with a parent, a family member, a friend, or a romantic partner. At one point or another, we’ve all been guilty of being insensitive or emotionally unavailable to a person or self-involved in a toxic, dysfunctional way. Just as we have experienced emotional needs and those needs not being met. These are all parts of the human condition. So that, for me, was the really interesting thing to portray.
Ultimately, the purpose of something like Midsommar is to challenge people to acknowledge the fact that they can relate to both of these people. And, ultimately, we do find ourselves in alignment with Dani at the end of the movie. This is a movie about her liberation from a toxic relationship and the catharsis that comes with it, albeit that the catharsis is confusing, painful, complex and not entirely clear. It’s very clear that it’s ultimately where we’re supposed to find ourselves at the end of the movie.
I was interested in giving extra layers of dimensionality to Christian and challenging myself to empathize and relate to a guy who, on the surface, is just an archetypal toxic alpha male. What allowed me to get into that was to follow this guy’s journey, which is the reverse of the hero’s journey. This guy’s structures, identity, and everything about him breaks down and is stripped away from him before he can even realize it. It’s happening all around him, and he doesn’t see it before it’s too late. But he finds himself literally stripped bare in this humiliating, exposing place, which is absolutely terrifying. That allowed me to get into the character, looking at him and acknowledging there are plenty of elements of that character that are in me and every single human being on the face of the planet. It’s the human condition.
I think you also said something to the people who thought Christian deserved what he got, “Go home and take a look at yourself in the mirror.” I don’t think anyone would want to be judged by their worst day or the worst thing they did. People are complicated, and they make decisions that don’t even make sense to themselves.
I totally agree, dude. I might have been a little bit reactionary myself to the audience! [laughs] But now that I’ve had an opportunity to talk about it, this is how I feel.
Some scenes that supposedly showed Christian in a more sympathetic light were left on the cutting room floor—obviously, what makes the most sense for the film is what should win out, but is there a part of you that wishes people might see the fuller picture of the character you created?
Partly, but then it would have been a very different film. I think, ultimately, it’s the director’s decision that we’re aligned with Dani. And it’s an interesting one. If the scenes where Christian exhibits more compassion and provides her with stuff she needs in the moment had been left in, the film would be even more divisive and polarizing for an audience than it is. But as I said, it was the director’s decision to take it out.
How do you tackle playing beats in Midsommar like the one when Christian turns on a dime and decides he also wants to research the Hårga in direct mimicry of Josh, his friend and colleague. The underlying reasons of jealousy and entitlement read clearly to us, but Christian himself seems a bit aloof and isn’t cognizant of why he’s doing what he is. How do you approach those moments?
I looked through the script, and there’s so much of being a dick and being aloof. But I wanted to play this guy, further to your point, on his worst day. It’s the worst of this guy. Although that’s pretty much all we see of the character, my baseline for Christian is that he’s a well-meaning guy. He would probably think he’s a good dude who tries to do the right thing. When you pitch the character there for yourself and allow the character to do questionable things, I think it gives context to everything. So that’s what I tried to do, making it a case where an audience is watching a good dude do really, really dickish things. All they’re seeing is these awful things he’s doing, but it’s all coming out of a guy who’s largely well-meaning. Some of the stuff he does is really unforgivable, particularly the element of stealing Josh’s idea for the thesis and being so brazen about it. It’s unbelievable. If there’s one thing in particular I find unforgivable about him, it’s that. I think to base the character as someone who means well but is acting out their worst aspects of their character in this moment is how I got into it.
You’ve spoken about wanting to get in on the ground floor with directors and being a part of their success, not just latching yourself on when they’re already established. How do you know or gauge who’s going the distance and who’s a one-hit wonder?
You never really know completely. You’re taking a swing, and there’s so much luck involved. It’s a question of educating yourself as much as possible in the culture of cinema and making an educated guess from there. Ari in particular is someone who I thought his short films were visionary when I watched them, because I never got to see Hereditary before I signed on to do this movie. The script was really interesting, but what he wrote goes far beyond the words on the page. The conversations I had with him prior to signing on to be a part of the film were definitely incredibly encouraging for me. We have a common admiration for a number of quite obscure filmmakers, but some of the best filmmakers who ever lived, nonetheless. To me, that was a sign that this was something I wanted to be a part of and this was a director who valued the artistic merit of the project above all else. As long as you’re in the company of someone like that and as cultured as he is in the conversation of filmmaking, you’re probably in good hands. I’m going to endeavor to continue down that route interrogating directors I work with.
Is that education aspect of it a part of what your new Instagram movie review account, Jack Reynor’s Cinemania, is about? Watching movies with an eye to your own development as an artist?
One-hundred percent, man. That’s something I started not only because I wanted to start conversations with others about the cinema I love, but because it also helps me to advise and absorb what I’m seeing when I’m watching it. It educates me further in the grammar of cinema, and it’s a very useful tool for me as much as it’s an outlet. I absolutely love it.
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