Is there any major film in recent memory that has been so widely misread? The closing shot of Florence Pugh, dressed in flowers as the newly single Dani Ardor, has been called the definitive “good for her” cinematic moment. Ari Aster’s grisly political metaphor is far bleaker in its resolution, with Dani co-opted to become the May Queen for a brood of inbred white supremacist religious cultists: not a feminist victory, but a horrifying tale of the power of a community making you constantly question your own beliefs. Time to reappraise what Aster was really saying. – Richard Whittaker
