With a title of Melancholia, you know you’re not expecting the guy to get the girl, the villain to be vanquished or, I dunno, wall-to-wall smiley faces. Still … Kirsten Dunst is depressed for two hours. And she’s the happy one.
Melancholia is two films – the first is a wedding reception in which we discover how much we can’t stand Justine (Dunst). In the sci-fi second, we discover how much we can’t stand her sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). I’m sorry, but this is the kind of stuff that drives me apeshit: how exactly did a family of father John Hurt (English), mother Charlotte Rampling (English), sister Charlotte Gainsbourg (English) have a daughter/sibling of Kirsten Dunst (OMG, American; yes, she holds dual German citizenship, but come on). The other three all have proper Queen’s English accents throughout Melancholia. You gotta invent a pretty imaginative scenario to get the English sister with English parents to have a deep and committed relationship with Kirsten Dunst.
Everybody seems to know there’s something off about Justine. Not sure if it’s manic depression or frosted flakiness, but the wedding party seems to treat Justine’s antisocial behavior with a shrug of “whatchagonnado, it’s Justine.” And yet, I am convinced the participants had a contest to see who could be most disappointed by the wedding reception. The bidding started early with Clair leading the way; she halts Justine outside a private estate the size of a small country owned by her husband John (Kiefer Sutherland) to point out that Justine is two hours late – I’m sorry; that’s only on her?!– Mom ups the ante while interrupting dad’s toast; she had the good taste to wear a tie-dye to the wedding and at the reception pronounces the institution of marriage a sham and something she loathes. Turns out she and dad are split … hard to believe. (At that moment, btw, Justine turns frowny; she will be depressed for the remainder, the entire reeeeeemmaaaaaaiiiiinnnddeeeerrrrrr, of the film.) Kiefer Sutherland then joins the hate parade while insisting that Justine have a good time because he’s paying a lot for it. But in the end, nobody out-disappoints a Swede, as shown late in the evening by the father/son tag team of Stellan Skarsgård and Alexander Skarsgård. Jack (Stellan) is Justine’s employer and while playing up said relationship – and putting pressure on the bride to get her head in her work during her wedding reception– storms out early when Justine fails to mince words. Personally, I bet he couldn’t wait to go and was just looking for an excuse.
The winner, however, is Michael (Alexander) who goes from “I’m the happiest man on the planet” over dinner toasts to giving up on his marriage before daylight comes. Bravo. Brav-o. Fiction or not, shrew or not, you’ve set a new low for lack-of-commitment to your partner.
Lars? Seriously? Lars von Trier? Dude. Um … how shall I put this … wtf? Your scenes have this wonderful verisimilitude ultimately and consistently undermined by reality. I’ve been to dozens of weddings in my lifetime. Every.single.one had issues with bad feelings and imperfection no matter how detailed the planning. And yet, if you combined all those people who left weddings I attended truly upset, the number would still be dwarfed by Part I of Melancholia.
I’m sorry, Kirsten Dunst won awards for this performance? Really? Look, even at her most magnanimous, she comes off as overindulged. In a script like Melancholia, she is almost literally asked to behave as if no other person on the planet matters. This comes shockingly easy to Ms. Dunst, who strikes me as a girl born to be a bridezilla. Geez, one man’s Cannes 
Door Prize is another man’s Jersey Housewife.
In part II, we return to the estate for intrigue and nudity, but not much of either. I liked Part II better; we get to know the players a little more while wondering if the random traveling planet Melancholia is going to collide with the Earth. I won’t give it away, but I’m not sure I have to with a title like Melancholia.
I’m glad films like Melacholia exist; film should represent a full gamut of human emotion; introversion and depression are rarely represented with any justice on celluloid because, well, people generally don’t go to the movies to be depressed. That said — Melancholia wasn’t terrible, but it had a distinct air of pretension. This happens in films where the script lacks for a positive character of any kind. It also shows in some of the worst cinematography imaginable for a veteran director. In a slow-moving film, the camera man seems constantly surprised by the appearance of an actor or actress. How many films films do you have to direct before you know how to shoot one? There must be two dozen moments of “focus, please” in this thing. I’m not kidding. That’s too many in a home movie, let alone a Cannes winner. Who are you people to promote such?
It’s a long film; try not to yawn
‘Bout a bride and her happiness, gone
What about groom?
In heart, is there room?
Pfft. His vows don’t last until dawn.
Rated R, 136 Minutes
D: Lars von Trier
W: Lars von Trier
Genre: Uber-Depression
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: People who long to wipe that cheerful disposition from the face of Kirsten Dunst
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Cartoon lovers
Charlotte Rampling may technically be English but she can play French like a native. This leads me to conclude that she probably could have done an American accent if she wanted to do so. Maybe Lars told Kiki Dunst to sound British. You have to admit this was a stretch role for Ms. Dunst, British or not. There is a point in the second act where one is hoping for planetary collision.