In controversial Danish director Lars Von Trier’s new science fiction film, MELANCHOLIA, Kirsten Dunst returns to the superhero genre that made her a household name. In the critically divisive film, Dunst plays a blushing bride who’s intense, maudlin demeanor fuels heretofore unexplored and untamed telekinetic powers.
“That’s not what the film is about at all,” Dunst told a random Frenchman with a microphone at the Toronto Independent Film Festival. “It’s about the fragility of the human experience.”
Whatever artsy metaphor is on the surface of her latest project, fans the world over will be pleased to see Dunst back where she belongs: surrounded by gratuitous CGI and being whisked around cityscapes by a sullen Tobey Maguire.
“Tobey Maguire is not in this film.” Von Trier continues to deny Maguire’s involvement, but the notoriously prickly auteur is said to be keeping a tight lid on the plot’s specifics. Perhaps a cameo is in the works?
“This is NOT a superhero film,” Von Trier added. “It’s a very serious drama about the world coming to an end, and the futility of existence.”
A superhero who fails to save the world? Maybe this sort of experimental take on the mythos is exactly the shot in the arm the stale superhero genre needs. We all saw SPIDER-MAN 3. If anybody can fail on that grand a scale, it’s Kirsten Dunst.