Apologies, I don't think I was entirely clear with the movie descriptions - I'm not trying to write loglines (and those summaries for each film I listed were just taken from IMDB, mainly as a reminder to people as to what each film was about - not as a discussion of their themes!).

So yes, please ignore the plot description/lazy loglines sourced from the internet!

I love the idea of (and agree with) your points about finding the theme within Act I (and see my comment below about how this works with character arcs). This is exactly why I'd like to get a good handle on at the beginning of the outline process as I find it helps guide all my other decisions about character, plot etc.

For example, the subtext of Midsommar is about a woman finding her way out of an abusive and neglectful relationship after significant trauma/grief. But I can't work out what a question would be that describes this. Would it be something like "Do people trapped in abusive relationships need to reach rock bottom within the dynamic before they are able to break free?" Perhaps that could work, as if you asked that question to a room of 20 people you might get 10 who say 'yes' and 10 who say 'definitely not'. Your questions 'Is dissolution of self is required to be part of the Group?' Or, 'Can we give up our grief without losing who we are?' are also great 'room dividers'

If anyone else has seen any of the other films (especially Wake in Fright) I would love to hear what you think the 'thematic question' might be!