Melancholia (2011)
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Reviews Counted: 180
Fresh: 139 | Rotten: 41
Melancholia's dramatic tricks are more obvious than they should be, but this is otherwise a showcase for Kirsten Dunst's acting and for Lars von Trier's profound, visceral vision of depression and destruction.
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Critic Reviews: 45
Fresh: 35 | Rotten: 10
Melancholia's dramatic tricks are more obvious than they should be, but this is otherwise a showcase for Kirsten Dunst's acting and for Lars von Trier's profound, visceral vision of depression and destruction.
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Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 38,626
My Rating
Movie Info
Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) are celebrating their marriage at a sumptuous party in the home of her sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and brother-in-law (Kiefer Sutherland). Meanwhile, the planet, Melancholia, is heading towards Earth... Melancholia is a psychological disaster movie from director Lars von Trier. -- (C) Official Site
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Cast
-
Kirsten Dunst
Justine -
Alexander Skarsgård
Michael -
Kiefer Sutherland
John -
Charlotte Gainsbourg
Claire -
John Hurt
Dexter -
Charlotte Rampling
Gaby -
Stellan Skarsgård
Jack -
Udo Kier
Kier, Wedding Planner -
Brady Corbet
Tim -
Jesper Christensen
Little Father -
Jim Cagnard
Michael's Father -
Deborah Fronko
Michael's Mother -
Charlotta Miller
Betty 1 -
Claire Marie Miller
Betty 2 -
Erin Lee Sahlstrom
Girl with Guitar -
Christian Geisnæs
Wedding Photographer -
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Melancholia Trailer & Photos
All Critics (182) | Top Critics (45) | Fresh (142) | Rotten (41) | DVD (5)
"Melancholia" is a hauntingly beautiful meditation on depression that is as likely to exasperate as many people as it moves.
Top Criticvon Trier's 'Melancholia': Bad 'art.'
Melancholia floats in an air of supernatural malaise and tension, a melancholy mirrored in everything and everyone.
Melancholia will haunt you for days, maybe weeks.
A severe and ecstatic work of art.
No moviemaker I know creates psychodramas so hard to watch and difficult to forget. If we esteem Sylvia Plath, Vincent van Gogh and Samuel Beckett, Von Trier deserves our attention, too.
A strong central performance from Kirsten Dunst, this is one of the best Lars von Trier films yet made.
Melancholia is not about the end of the world, but the end of a feeling: happiness.
You would think that material like this would make for a fascinating film, but unfortunately that doesn't end up being the case.
An extraordinarily ambitious exercise in nihilism.
Much more compelling than the narratively confused Tree of Life, and a welcome return to form for the mad Dane.
While existence hangs in the balance in Melancholia, von Trier's fatalistic embrace of impending doom is starkly beautiful and strangely reassuring.
A lot of people will hate Melancholia for all the reasons it's not like other sci-fi films or traditional dramatic films - and others such as myself will love it for its difference.
While I appreciated what it was trying to do, I wasn't wild about it.
Bang and whimper all rolled up into one, Lars von Trier's dolorous Melancholia gets a glorious Blu-ray transfer from Magnolia.
This is not a feel-good movie. This is the frigid, hard-to-embrace cinematic opposite of a feel-good movie, in fact -- all wrapped in one long, dark metaphor for depression.
It's impossible not to be moved in a profound way by the small events that take place within the larger one.
For all his bluff and bluster, Lars Von Trier is often remarkably adept at examining the human condition and Melancholia is no exception
Von Trier's most mainstream film and though not exactly laugh-a-minute, easily his most entertaining too.
A strange mix of apocalyptic sci-fi and darkly comic social drama, the film is glacially slow in tempo but filled with stunning, gorgeously shot images. It will annoy as many viewers as it charms.
It's an enormous pity Trier didn't find/commission an overarching score that supported his vision.
Melancholia takes great pleasure in distressing its audience with ugly, harrowing imagery and behavior, but, more often that not, Von Trier's film is an exhibition of life's beauty and the shame it would be to watch it burn.
...a seriously oppressive piece of work.
Pitched as a beautiful movie about the end of the world, Melancholia succeeds.
A divine piece of post-apocalyptic cinema.
Audience Reviews for Melancholia
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Justine: Six hundred and seventy eight. The bean lottery. Nobody guessed the number of beans in the bottle.
- Claire: No, that's right.
- Justine: But I know. Six hundred and seventy eight.
- Claire: Well, perhaps. But what does that prove?
- Justine: That I know things. And when I say we're alone, we're alone. Life is only on earth. And not for long.
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- John: Those bitches have locked themselves in their bedrooms and are now taking baths. Is everyone in your family stark raving mad?
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- Tim: The way I see it, you're now short of a boss and a husband, could I, in all humility, offer my services? You have the ideas. I have the head for business. We could be the perfect couple. We've had good sex.
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- Jack: Too bad about Tim.
- Justine: What about Tim?
- Jack: That he got fired. he didn't last many hours in the business, but then again, it's a rather unpredictable one. You're a king one day and beggar the next.
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- Justine: If your dad said that, then he's forgotten about something. He's forgotten about the magic cave.
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- Claire: It looks friendly.
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| melancholia' symbolism | 14 days ago | 7 |
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Foreign Titles
- Melancholia (DE)
- Melancholia (UK)
What we get here is an apocalyptic drama centered around a rogue planet that is on a collision course with Earth. The story is told in two parts and focusing (primarily) on two sisters, Justine: a severely depressed newlywed and Claire who is quite wealthy and tries to look after/help Justine.
The film doesn't try to be scientifically accurate in terms of the astrophysics, but as a treatise on depression/melancholy and how different people react to looming crisis, it's actually pretty good. Especially with how depression is portrayed. That probably has something to do with the fact that a lot of this is based on von Trier's own experiences with depression.
I actually found this to have a lot in common with Rachel Getting Married, due to wedding plot points, depression, bummed out characters, and the fact that both films are rambling, meandering, slow, and pretentious, artsy indies. That film was annoying though. This one, though it might be difficult, is sorta easier to tolerate, even though it is rather hard to sit through at times.
Yeah, it's over long, and perhaps too slow, but I found this to be less boring than I anticipated. Where the film really excels is in being ethereal as well as absolutely gorgeous. The look here is really striking at times, especially during the big tableaux shots. Some of the handheld stuff is great too, but the big stuff, especially the prologue, is just brilliant. The same goes for the use of music, which is the frequent repetition of the prologue from Tristan Und Isolde by Wagner.
Kirsten Dunst gives basically her best performance of her career so far as Justine. She's really engaging and a joy to watch, even though she's playing such a joyless and damaged character. Charlotte Gainsbourg is fine as Claire, though not as strong as Dunst. I liked seeing Kiefer Sutherland as Claire's husband John, as well as the hamminess of Udo Kier and John Hurt. Both Stellan and Alexander Skarsgard appear, but unfortunately there's not enough of them, especially Alexander.
This is definitely a challenging film, but it can be rewarding if you give it a chance. I'm torn on the specific rating, so let's split it between 3.5 and 4 stars.