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The Wild Wisdom of Florence Pugh

The young star of ‘Lady Macbeth’ and ‘Little Women’ already proves herself to be an authority on representing complex womanhood.
Fighting With My Family Florence Pugh
Lionsgate
By  · Published on May 15th, 2021

Outlaw King (2018)

Pugh continues to advocate for generosity and love in David Mackenzie’s historical drama Outlaw King. Her role as Elizabeth de Burgh – the second wife of legendary Scottish king Robert the Bruce – significantly uplifts an arduous and grisly film about revolutionary self-determination.

The movie fictionalizes Bruce’s fight for Scottish independence from the oppressive rule of Edward I of England. Pugh first comes into the picture when the rebellion is initially neutralized – the truce between both men symbolized by Bruce’s arranged marriage to Edward’s goddaughter, Elizabeth.

What later percolates is an inhibited relationship not unlike what we see in Lady Macbeth. Thankfully, the tentative courtship between Bruce and Elizabeth evolves into one of self-respect and adoration when the two mutually recognize each other’s gentle as well as tenacious sensibilities.

In a way, I can’t help but feel that distinguishing Elizabeth as a fiery feminine spirit opposite Bruce’s good-natured heroics (considering apparent historical inaccuracies) results in a more generic acting opportunity than the indomitable Pugh deserves. Still, the actress concertedly exercises personal agency in this supporting role and is never left on the sidelines, even as she assumes her most motherly character to date in Outlaw King. Instead, Pugh’s deep embrace of Elizabeth’s compassion and devotion translates to admirable resilience.


Malevolent (2018)

Malevolent further integrates horror into Pugh’s resumé and it is a shame that the film isn’t a better representation of the genre. She leads the Olaf de Fleur Johannesson film as Angela, one-half of two American siblings grappling with the recent suicide of their mother. Their family has a noted sensitivity to the supernatural, with Angela purportedly inheriting her mom’s abilities as a medium.

Her stubborn brother convinces her to use these powers for a quick buck, scamming gullible homeowners under the guise of being professional ghost hunters. Obviously, the two eventually get far more than they bargained for once they find out that the paranormal does exist.

Regrettably, these humdrum plot points and the meager character development in the movie’s script prove perfunctory, at best. Pugh makes the most of a sparse script to bolster the film’s broad scares by tapping into Angela’s unresolved trauma, drawing solicitude from the audience where other characters fail to. Simply put, Malevolent would be far less interesting without her.


The Little Drummer Girl (2018)

Pugh finds critical acclaim with an incomparable directorial talent to conclude her robust 2018 roster. She teams up with filmmaker Park Chan-wook to bring John le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl to life on the small screen.

The six-part cosmopolitan miniseries follows Charmian “Charlie” Ross (Pugh), a politically active English actress who unexpectedly stumbles into the world of espionage and counter-terrorism in the late 1970s. Recruited by Mossad on the pretense of stopping an alleged terror attack, Charlie must contend with an evolving personal code heavily influenced by passion and unintelligible truths on multiple fronts.

The Little Drummer Girl is a perpetually unfolding experience, employing layers of heady deception to muddy the waters of intention and consequence for Charlie and viewers alike. Encased in Park’s deft direction, Kim Woo-hyung’s crisp cinematography, and the narrative’s purposely incendiary setting – involving the persistent tension between Israel and Palestine – Pugh isn’t so much tasked to be an arbiter of right and wrong.

Rather, Charlie is a contradictory human at the mercy of forces far out of her control. Pugh portrays these complexities with interchangeable delicacy and audacity as the character matures throughout the series. The magic of her performance lies in her ability to convincingly wear various disguises, particularly when Charlie wishes to fool herself. Pugh faces one of the most fully-formed characters of her career in The Little Drummer Girl, and her many quandaries are delectable to witness.


Fighting with My Family (2019)

Stephen Merchant’s blisteringly funny Fighting with My Family proves that Pugh never has to trade pure, unadulterated entertainment for quality ever again. The biographical sports film dramatizes the origin story of the professional wrestler Saraya “Paige” Knight, who makes the coveted ascent from her independent Norwich circuit to the bright lights of the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

Coming from a clan of wrestlers herself makes Paige exceptionally inclined to continue her family legacy. However, Fighting with My Family posits that the reality of achieving her dreams doesn’t always feel so great. In the film, Paige constantly confronts the extent of her desires for worldwide success – to be the “weird” girl belonging to an infamously onerous industry. Simultaneously, she contends with perceived expectations from her mother, father, and brother, hoping to make them proud.

Once again, Pugh takes an archetypal coming-of-age story and infuses it with realistic, feisty energy that takes the entire project to the next level. This time, there is an inherent physicality to Paige that she must commit to, but the wrestler’s physique suits her impeccably. Here, it is finally time for Pugh to externalize the pent-up tension that’s discernible in many of her earlier characters.

The toughness that Pugh exudes as Paige more often than not gives way to the character’s multitude of insecurities, as well. These internal conflicts don’t always paint her in the most favorable light, but we easily respond to their accessibility. Pugh expertly modulates Paige’s merits and faults and holistically, creating a character wholly worth celebrating.


In the Time It Takes to Get There (2019)

Most of the short films in Pugh’s filmography stand as a lovely test of the actress’s comedic skills. For example, she can be seen as part of the stacked ensemble of Leading Lady Parts – Jessica Swale and Gemma Arterton’s Time’s Up inspired critique on the process of actor auditions. Yet, while Leading Lady Parts is a hilarious, exceptionally biting depiction of the plights faced by a plethora of actresses, Pugh only figures as a minuscule part in it.

In comparison, Zach Braff’s In the Time It Takes to Get There just gives Pugh more to do as a performer. The quirky 11-minute short was borne from a poster competition by Adobe, wherein the winning design eventually influenced the prospective premise of the final short.

Less of an incisive examination than a light acerbic jab at entrenched social media customs, the film sees Pugh as a Regency-era social influencer under the management of an especially funny Alicia Silverstone. Chaos ensues when the duo race against the clock to “post” the perfect advertisement for some dodgy hair tonic.

This combination of historical and contemporary aesthetics surprisingly works wonders, notably because Pugh and Silverstone take deadpan swings at one another with acute comedic precision. Pugh herself epitomizes that dichotomy in a protagonist who is concurrently inelegant and composed – quotidian and showy – the ideal portrait of the modern-day celebrity.


Midsommar (2019)

Pugh reaches new heights in her chase for complicated women in Ari Aster’s Midsommar. Starring in the highly-anticipated folk horror follow-up to Hereditary – after that performance by Toni Collette – surely comes with a slew of preconceived notions in and of itself. Regardless, the polarizing result of Midsommar leaves us with one irrefutable fact: that Pugh is more than capable of pushing the boundaries of her onscreen presence and makes a remarkable impact on the genre.

After all, she’s getting us to empathize with a cult. Midsommar follows four friends who travel to Sweden for the rare chance of attending a festival that only occurs once every 90 years. Each goes for different academic and recreational reasons, but the group soon discovers that escaping what is later revealed to be a Scandinavian pagan sect may prove impossible.

Pugh plays Dani, the only woman in the troupe. While the rest of her friends excitedly await this excursion abroad, she remains persistently troubled by various unvoiced demons. These stem from both the macabre murder-suicide of her immediate family, in addition to deep-seated anxieties about the sustainability of her long-term romantic relationship.

The conundrum at the heart of Pugh’s turn in Midsommar posits the notion that anyone would realistically break when a distinct lack of love repeatedly pushes a person to the brink of their sanity and beyond. She does this by artfully fostering an equilibrium between repressed angst and coerced serenity, letting cracks organically form in her facade of supposed “fineness”.

As Dani, Pugh personifies a terrifyingly cathartic visage that revels in the disintegration of the self. The sheer normalcy that she injects the character with further establishes a contradictory perception of comfort in this journey of de-actualization. By far, Dani is one of Pugh’s most disturbing and impressive creations to date.


Little Women (2019)

Conversely, Little Women is the perfect antidote to the unmitigated nightmare of Midsommar. This version of Louisa May Alcott’s eponymous 1868 novel is freeing in a completely different way. We’ve witnessed the trials and tribulations of the March family several times over at this point, but Greta Gerwig’s interpretation of the source material specifically feels like a love letter to Pugh’s character, Amy.

Amy is the youngest of the March sisters. She isn’t responsible like Meg (Emma Watson), independent like Jo (Saoirse Ronan), or sweet like Beth (Eliza Scanlen). Instead, Amy is characterized by her immaturity, self-centeredness, and frivolity. Her impression of rebellion has little to do with self-sufficiency and there is a pronounced innocence in her vivacity.

It’s therefore easy to conceive of Amy as the annoying, least-likable March if only because she adamantly refuses to tick all the boxes of agreeable girlhood. In fact, all of the sisters reveal themselves to be just as complex throughout Little Women. Yet, Pugh’s rendition of Amy stands out as the character with the most growth.

Via Pugh, we observe that Amy is precious over her youth and basks in it – invasive, impetuous, and downright adorable. Nonetheless, she isn’t void of the wisdom that her sisters seem to have in spades, preferring to cling to the comforts of her adolescence to combat the dreaded inevitability of adulthood. Pugh, who has often played girls who come across far older than they really are, not only gets to relish in childishness but add legitimate prudence to an easily-overlooked character. She compels us to see parts of ourselves in Amy and love her despite her shortcomings.


Clearly, Pugh is just getting started, too. If her brief appearance in the charity mini-sequel to the Father of the Bride franchise – Father of the Bride Part 3(ish) – is any indication, she deserves more comedy in her roster, although I’d rather see her make a feature with this same cast than a fairly awkward quarantine film. At the time of writing, Pugh’s introduction to the Marvel Cinematic Universe is imminent, with Black Widow right on the horizon and the Hawkeye series in full swing as well. Moreover, she is tapped to lead a bunch of thrillers, namely Olivia Wilde’s star-studded second feature film Don’t Worry Darling, the murder-mystery The Maid, and Sebastián Lelio’s The Wonder.

Pugh’s work thus far exhibits her keen mastery of the inexplicability of the human psyche. The more she immerses herself in disparate genre explorations, the more we recognize her distinct ability to skillfully craft well-rounded characters in even the most traditional, heartwarming narratives. Pugh’s resumé of greats has a tendency to get under our skin and lingers there, and we wholly and completely allow it.

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Sheryl Oh often finds herself fascinated (and let's be real, a little obsessed) with actors and their onscreen accomplishments, developing Film School Rejects' Filmographies column as a passion project. She's not very good at Twitter but find her at @sherhorowitz anyway. (She/Her)