On Rotten Tomatoes, the vital consensus for “Melancholia” reads: “‘Melancholia’s’ dramatic methods are extra apparent than they need to be, however that is in any other case a showcase for Kirsten Dunst’s performing and for Lars von Trier’s profound, visceral imaginative and prescient of melancholy and destruction.” If this looks like a superb signal for the movie’s total ranking, you would be proper; it earned a stable 80% on the evaluation aggregator, and it additionally acquired plenty of accolades. After the movie premiered on the Cannes Movie Pageant, Dunst gained the pageant’s award for Greatest Actress, each the New York Movie Critics On-line and the Nationwide Society of Movie Critics named it the one of many prime movies of 2011, and far afterward in 2019, publications like Vulture ranked it among the many absolute best movies of the last decade.
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Anyway, what about particular person critics? For IndieWire, Lisa Rosman wrote, “In ‘Melancholia,’ [Lars] von Trier has created a mission assertion of a masterpiece, one which reminds us that nihilism itself can function a legit type of creation, a way in addition to The Finish.” Bob Mondello appeared to agree; as he put it in his evaluation for NPR, “It is a planet that may’t come quickly sufficient for her, however one which I saved keen away. Not, I am a bit of embarrassed to say, to save lots of humanity from ‘Melancholia,’ however merely to remain on this outstanding film’s presence just a bit longer.” Over at Slate, Dana Stevens appeared barely extra blended however nonetheless arrived at a constructive conclusion — “There’s one thing in regards to the solemn, gloomy, typically overwhelmingly highly effective expertise of watching ‘Melancholia.’ I will give it this a lot: This can be a arduous film to neglect” — and Andrew O’Hehir known as it “essentially the most composed and exquisite and conspicuously grownup movie of [von Trier’s] profession” in his evaluation for Salon. Leisure Weekly‘s critic Lisa Schwarzbaum, in the meantime, had a few of the most effusive reward for the movie, writing, “Though ‘Melancholia,’ by its very title, declares a mournful frame of mind, the film is, the truth is, the work of a person whose gradual emergence from private disaster has resulted in a transferring masterpiece, marked by an astonishing profundity of imaginative and prescient.”
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Not each critic was totally on board with “Melancholia,” although. As Mike D’Angelo wrote for The AV Membership, “There is a disconnect right here between idea and execution — a form of desultory, moment-to-moment clumsiness — that makes ‘Melancholia’ really feel like remedy poorly disguised as drama.” Over at Slant Journal, Ed Gonzalez agreed: “‘Melancholia’ is a movie of few epiphanies and even fewer insights, and as clever because the movie’s doom and gloom could also be, its symbolism flounders.” Definitely, the movie is not for everybody — however nonetheless, opinions have been overwhelmingly constructive. So, what has Dunst been doing since her lauded efficiency in “Melancholia?”
