Melancholia

Just a few months ago the movie Melancholia was released simultaneously in the theaters and on Demand. The movie received some rave reviews. One stated that the movie was so stunning visually that despite being available on demand that one had to see it in the theaters to do it justice.

With a cast led my Kirsten Dunst and Kiefer Sutherland there was enough star power to merit interest but clearly the star of the movie was the premise, as well as the cinematography.

So last evening an hour after rejoining Netflix, for the summer only, we decided to stream a movie and seeing this, remembered the reviews.

The movie does not live up to the billing. The characters are just too out there. The major characters in the movie are two sisters Claire and Justine. The movie opens with Justine, played by Dunst getting married. On that day she notices a star that seems odd in the sky. The wedding, banquet, and more take an untenable amount of time. Justine is just odd and that is putting it nicely. While the party goes on downstairs she takes a bath. Her Mother is nasty, does not believe in marriage, her father looks like the most interesting man in the world from the Dos Equis commercials. Then she takes a walk out on the grounds of a golf course near the reception and ends up having sex with a man she has just met. None of it makes sense.

The next section centers on Claire, her sister, and it is now only a couple of days before the planet is supposed to be witness to a miracle. A new planet, named Melancholia, which had been hiding behind the sun is to go by Earth in stunning closeness. By this time Justine's husband is nowhere to be found, we are never told where he is, but we do see that she is all but incapacitated. Her sister tries to get her to take a bath but cannot get her to, and can only to get her to try to eat by making her favorite which happens to be meatloaf? All too weird. Claire's husband is a scientist who assures her that Earth will be witness to a great event but that the event is not cataclysmic. Others however disagree, and as one would imagine the internet is full of people claiming that the Earth will be struck with obvious devastation.

The star is clearly the visuals. In the end the planet does come by the Earth and then does recede. All is well, until it is not. And then it is really not.

Kristen Dunst is good I guess in her role. She plays her role well, but the character is so unlikable it is hard to judge how well she does. She does appear fully nude laying by the river, her character seems to be entranced by the the oncoming planet and as my son said watching the movie he seemed to get stronger, more sane as the planet gets closer.

I do not get the hidden significance, if there was one. I think the movie could have been special. I think the idea of showing how a calamity such as this affects one family as opposed to society going to hell at the end of the world has merit. The characters are just to weird and unlikable. In the end all the pictures in the world of another planet in the sky, close enough to look Earth like, cannot save a picture as bad as this.