BEFORE: 10 days until Comic-Con - the event is approaching like... Jeez, if only I could think of a metaphor for a giant, looming event that seems to be ominously approaching at a slow but unstoppable pace. Oh, well, I'm sure something will come to me. Linking from "In Time", Vincent Kartheiser was in a film called "Luckytown" with Kirsten Dunst (last seen in "All Good Things").
THE PLOT: Two sisters find their already strained relationship challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide with Earth.
AFTER: Let's talk for a second about entitlement, which is when self-important people have such a high opinion of themselves that they become slightly erratic and delusional. This manifests itself here, as a woman getting married suddenly feels the pressures of her new role (or perhaps it's her family, family always drives people crazy) and starts to feel depressed. A more basic reading would suggest that no wedding day or no husband could possibly live up to her impossibly high expectations, so she ruins her own life, simply because she's achieved what she set out to do, and it didn't satisfy her.
But what we're really meant to believe is that she's some kind of psychic, or has advanced knowledge of future events, so the approaching planet and impending doom is what's causing her to be depressed. What a load of rubbish.
Entitlement also happens when a director doesn't consult with any science people to find out that a planet can't possibly "hide" behind the sun, can't perform a "fly-by" of Earth, and couldn't possibly get that close to Earth, then move far away again, then slam into it. Things just don't work that way. Because at that point the director would be forced to say, "Oh, well, then I'll choose another story to tell", or stay the course and prove his own arrogance.
People like Newton and Kepler long ago figured out how planets move, and then other scientists used tiny variations in gravity (the effect planets have on each other) to figure out where other planets were, before we could even see them. And I'm supposed to believe a planet could "sneak up" on us? It's not possible. The planet Melancholia comes so close to the Earth that it disrupts electricity, and then sucks away some of the atmosphere (along with all of the enjoyment, apparently).
There's sort of a germ of an idea here, about whether rational or irrational people function better during crisis situations, but it's very underdeveloped, as is the entire film. No, we shouldn't be losing our heads if we think doom is imminent, but neither should we join hands and sing a song about it. Did anyone think to maybe look into STOPPING the disaster from happening, or slowing it down? Those are the people to make your movie about - go watch "Armageddon" and see how the focus is on the people on the front lines, not the navel-gazers in the cheap seats.
So, is the planet a metaphor for depression, or marriage, or what? When a film aims for "arty", as this one does, it can easily miss the ability to have a coherent point.
Also starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Keifer Sutherland (last seen in "Taking Lives"), Alexander Skarsgard (last seen in "Battleship"), Stellan Skarsgard (last seen in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"), Charlotte Rampling, John Hurt (last seen in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"), Udo Kier (last seen in "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective").
RATING: 2 out of 10 wedding toasts
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