A man rushes out of a barn naked. He runs around in confusion before
noticing a leg poking out of a nearby garden. Realizing that it’s his missing friend,
he rushes to hide inside a shed, only to find the corpse of his other friend.
Before he can react, an old man puts him into a "powedered" sleep.
Let’s find out the story behind such an ill fate. Dani gets a message from her sister that
indicates that she might harm herself. She constantly calls her parents, but no one picks up.
Distressed, she calls her boyfriend, Chirstian, who dismisses her worries
as her sister asking for attention and ignores the fact that her sister is bipolar.
Christian is hanging out with his friends, Mark, Josh, and Pelle, who encourage him
to break up with Dani as she is too clingy and doesn’t cater to his "manly" desires.
Christian then gets a call from Dani, who hysterically wails on the other end.
He goes to console her as she cries in his arms, and it is revealed that Dani’s sister used carbon
monoxide to end herself as well as her parents. As time passes, Dani is desperate to avoid her
grief and insists on going to a party with Christian.
At the party, the guys mention their trip to Sweden in two weeks, which Dani had no idea about.
She waits to get back home and confronts Christian about why he didn’t tell her about it.
Christian turns the situation around, and Dani ends up apologizing for being so intrusive.
Later, when Christian goes to meet his friends, he alerts them that he has invited
Dani on the trip to just be nice to her, although he is sure she won’t be going.
He asks them to act as if they are okay with her joining them.
Dani soon arrives, as Josh and Mark avoid her at all costs. Pelle talks to her about
the trip, where they are going to be experiencing a midsommar celebration
in his childhood village known as Harga. It is a once-in-a-90-year celebration that
lasts nine days. Josh wants to write his anthropology thesis about the festival,
while the others are going for the experience. He says that he is glad Dani will be joining
them and then expresses his condolences for her loss, which triggers Dani's
anxiety as she rushes to the bathroom. After reaching Sweden, they drive to Harga and
meet Pelle’s brother Ingemar in a beautiful field. Ingemar introduces his friends
Simon and Connie from England. It seems that all the people studying
outside have come back for the festival. Ingemar offers them some wizard mushrooms.
Dani is hesitant about it, so he gives her wizard tea instead.
The group gets lost in the effects of the mushroom, and Dani snaps out of it when
Pelle mentions something about family. She says she wants to go for a stroll
and starts walking when a group of people start laughing at her.
Overwhelmed, she rushes to a nearby outhouse, where she hallucinates about her sister.
Freaked out, she runs into the woods and experiences more
hallucinations before passing out. She dreams about her family before
waking up six hours later. When they get to the village,
they are welcomed by the Harga community, and they learn that the main festivities start tomorrow.
Soon, an elder named Siv welcomes them all and wishes them a happy Midsommar.
As they raise their glasses to cheer, a disabled kid is seen painting something in a corner.
Siv gives a torch to an elderly couple and chants some kind of ritual.
A girl named Maja can be seen getting ready in front of a mirror before joining the festivities.
She briefly stares at the group of foreigners before joining the community dance.
While dancing, she playfully kicks Christian, prompting him to join the dance along with Josh.
As Dani and Pelle are left alone, he gives her a sketch as a birthday gift.
Dani thanks him and remarks that Christian forgot about her birthday.
Ingemar and Pelle show them around when Christian notices a triangular
building and inquires about it. Pelle remarks that it is a sacred
temple where no one is allowed to enter. As the group splits, a bear can be seen
being kept inside a cage. They also notice a tapestry
where a weird love story is printed. Pelle takes his friends to the area where
they will be sleeping and reminds Christian about Dani’s birthday.
Christian then calls Dani outside and wishes her a happy birthday, reasoning
that the daylight confused him about the date. The next day, the group joins a grand feast
where the community follows the lead of the elderly couple from yesterday.
Through a Harga woman, Dani learns that the entire community participates in raising the newborns.
The elderly stand up and say something in their native language before raising
their glasses, and everyone follows suit. They are then taken to the edge of the cliff
while the others watch from the foot. Their palms are cut as they leave their
bloodprint on a historical stone. Following this, the woman jumps
off the cliff and falls to her death. The man follows suit but doesn’t die.
Another elder uses a sledgehammer to end his mystery.
The foreigners start to freak out, and Siv explains that it is their natural ritual;
when the elders feel that they have already reached the end of their life cycle,
they willfully end it. Motivated by the violence,
Christian declares that he is also going to write his thesis on the Harga community.
Josh feels betrayed, as Christian already knew he was working on it.
He asks Christian to find his own research topic, but Christian instead offers to collaborate on it.
Josh complains about this to Pelle, who remarks that the elders are too
protective of their rituals, so they are never going to consent to writing about their community.
But assures him that he will try to get their permission.
Dani is packing her things when Pelle arrives and apologizes for freaking her out.
He notes that he only wanted to share this experience with his friends.
Dani feels overwhelmed, and Pelle calms her down,
saying that he was most excited for her to meet the community.
He reveals that he also lost his parents in a fire, but
the community accepted him as their own family. He believes Dani deserves a real family as well.
Later that day, the elderly couple’s bodies are ritually cremated.
Christain finally remembers about Dani and checks on her.
She is concerned at how he doesn’t seem at all disturbed about what happened, but
Christian says that everyone has their individual cultures, and he is just trying to be respectful.
When Dani has trouble falling asleep, she asks Josh for some sleeping pills.
Later that night, Josh notices Maja putting something under Christian’s bed and,
in the morning, asks Pelle about it. Pelle reveals that it is a love rune,
which means Maja is interested in Christian. He also informs Christian and Josh that the
elders have allowed them to write about the community as long as they do not use any real
names or reveal the village’s location. They then hear Mark getting scolded
by a man as the villagers try to calm him. Pelle explains that he was peeing on an ancestral
tree that holds a lot of significance for them. Connie tells Dani that she and Simon
have decided to leave. An elder then arrives to
tell her that Simon is going to meet her at the train station as he has already left.
This doesn’t make any sense to Connie, who gets upset and walks off on her own.
Dani goes to tell Christian about what happened to Connie, but Christian is more concerned
about interviewing people for his thesis. The women invite Dani to cook with them
as they are making some tarts. Maja can be seen making a special tart with precision.
Josh interviews an elder about their sacred book that he had noticed during the previous ceremony.
The man reveals that the book contains the paintings created by the disabled child,
which the elders later interpret. These disabled children are the
products of intentional inbreeding and are considered to be the voice of the divine.
When this one dies, they will indulge in incestuous activities to create another one.
During the dinner, Danny asks if anyone has seen Connie, and one of the villager informs her that
he drove her earlier to the station. When Chritian takes a bite of his pie,
he finds a pubic-hair insdie and confusingly looks at Maja, who is already staring at him.
A girl Mark has a crush on calls him over, and he delightedly leaves.
At night, Josh sneaks into the room with the sacred book and starts taking pictures,
as he was not allowed to do that earlier.
He is soon interrupted by Mark storming into the room, but as he moves closer,
something feels wrong to him. Before he can understand it,
he gets hit and passes out. The person is revealed to be the
disabled child who is wearing Mark’s skin. The next day, Dani inquires about Mark and
Josh’s whereabouts, but Christian is not concerned about his own friends.
One of the elders then gets up from his seat, revealing that their sacred book has been stolen.
The two elders approach the remaining group and claim that it is unusual as
both their friends went missing on the same day as the book was stolen.
While Christian blames it all on Josh, Pelle expresses
a sense of responsibility for what happened. Dani is now taken away by some of the women,
while Christian is called to speak with Siv. Dani and other women drink a wizard herb tea as
they all participate in a ritualistic competition. All the girls are supposed to dance in a circle,
and the last standing one wins the title of May Queen.
On the other hand, Siv informs Christian that he has been chosen to mate with Maja,
but Christian’s response is not revealed. He walks out to see the dance, where one
of the women offers him some wizard tea, and he chugs it after briefly staring at Maja.
One by one, women fall and get disqualified, as Dani is still dancing with the final three.
The two women bump into each other and fall as Dani is declared the winner.
Everyone rushes to congratulate her as she is crowned the May Queen.
They photograph her while expressing their joy, when Pelle rushes close and kisses her.
She is hoisted on a table and taken towards the feast, where everyone waits for her
to start and follows her with honor. As everyone cheers for Dani and remarks
that she is now part of the family, Dani notices Maja giving a signal to Christian.
After everyone has eaten, Siv declares that Dani is required to bless their crops,
and she is rushed to get inside a carriage that is pulled by various village girls.
While Dani is blessing the crops, Christian is invited to the barn,
where Maja is waiting for him. The elder men dress him in
traditional clothing and give him some more wizard smoke.
He enters the barn, where Maja sits in the middle while various other women are standing beside her.
The mating begins while all the other women encourage them with singing
and soon join in to participate as well. When Dani gets back, she is summoned by Siv,
but upon hearing something from the barn, she decides to check what’s going on.
The woman tries to stop her, but Dani continues and peeks inside the barn.
Upon witnessing the horror, Dani is devastated and starts losing it.
The women come to her rescue and take her to the bed, where they all join her
as she wails, as if mourning together. Christian starts freaking out when he
is done and runs out of the barn, where he continues running in a confused state.
He then notices Josh’s foot in the garden and rushes to
hide in a shed, where he finds Simon’s corpse. But before he can react, he is wizarded yet again.
Christian wakes up to a woman telling him that he will not be able to speak anymore.
It’s the final day of Midsommar, where the May Queen is seated on the stage covered with flowers.
Pelle is honored for bringing new blood to the community.
The elders reveal Midsommar's tradition, where they sacrifice nine lives in nine days.
Four from their own community, four outsiders, and one chosen by the May Queen.
As two members of the community have already sacrificed their lives on the first day,
there are two more volunteers from the community, one of whom is Ingemar.
Four outsiders—Simon, Connie, Mark, and Josh—have already been sacrificed as well.
Now it’s up to May Queen to decide who she wants to sacrifice as the final one.
The choices are between Christian and one of the locals from the community.
Despite Christian’s silent pleas, Dani chooses to sacrifice him.
All the sacrifices are taken to the yellow temple, where Christian is put inside the bear’s carcass.
The ritual proceeds as the community gathers outside to
witness the temple being burned to the ground. Everyone, including Dani, starts to cry and
convulse, accepting the grief, and the film ends as Dani finally smiles, looking at the fire.