Here's what we learn from Melancholia: life sucks, people are awful, we're all going to die, and good riddance. Who says Lars von Trier doesn't like happy endings? Actually, the incurably depressive, gleefully cinematic flake gets almost sentimental before this Tarkovsky-like meditation on doom is over. Until then it wouldn't be a von Trier picture without some name actress put through the wringer. Like Kirsten Dunst, who gives as well as she gets as Justine. She's a nutcase who petulantly ruins her own wedding reception, a grand affair at her sister's (Charlotte Gainsbourg) husband's (Kiefer Sutherland) chi-chi hotel. Nonetheless, she's uncannily beautiful when she floats downstream in a recreation of Millais's Ophelia, or poses naked under the blue glow of the title orb. But that rogue planet is heading our way, and the second half of the film consists of Justine catatonic in bed while everyone else denies the inevitable. My advice: enjoy the gorgeous imagery while you can.
