- , Urban Cinefile, April 16, 2012
Melancholia clearly showcases Kirsten Dunst as a bona fide force of nature: something that's been hitherto overlooked or ignored. For that alone, it gets my vote.
- Ed Gibbs, The Sun Herald, December 13, 2011
some gargoyle-like version of German romanticism or a chick flick ... maybe ... both
- Andrew L. Urban, Urban Cinefile, December 10, 2011
Occasionally gripping, at times fascinating and often just plain dull, this terminally long and episodic drama with sci-fi overtones is a curious work
- Louise Keller, Urban Cinefile, December 10, 2011
Ambitious but very flawed.
- David Stratton, At the Movies (Australia), December 01, 2011
I found the film magnificent.
- Margaret Pomeranz, At the Movies (Australia), December 01, 2011
"Melancholia" is a hauntingly beautiful meditation on depression that is as likely to exasperate as many people as it moves.
- Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic, December 01, 2011
von Trier's 'Melancholia': Bad 'art.'
- Joe Baltake, Passionate Moviegoer, November 30, 2011
Melancholia floats in an air of supernatural malaise and tension, a melancholy mirrored in everything and everyone.
- Christine Champ, Film.com, November 29, 2011
Melancholia will haunt you for days, maybe weeks.
- Rafer Guzman, Newsday, November 23, 2011
A severe and ecstatic work of art.
- Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News, November 23, 2011
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.
- Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune, November 22, 2011
Bizarre, sometimes tedious, occasionally amazing.
- Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com, November 12, 2011
Dunst gives a strong, hard-bitten performance even though she is playing an attitude rather than a character.
- Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor, November 11, 2011
The end of the world, von Trier-style, is a middling thing as a film.
- Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter, November 11, 2011
It's a planet that can't come soon enough for her, but one that I kept willing away. Not, I'm a little embarrassed to say, to save humanity from Melancholia, but simply to stay in this remarkable movie's presence just a little longer.
- Bob Mondello, NPR, November 11, 2011
There's something about the solemn, gloomy, often overwhelmingly powerful experience of watching Melancholia. I'll give it this much: This is a hard movie to forget.
- Dana Stevens, Slate, November 11, 2011
Von Trier has thought his conceit through, and his vision was thorough enough to attract a superb cast to join him on his one-way joyride to hell.
- Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald, November 17, 2011
Where did Melancholia come from? It's best not to ask. The explanation for the planet's origins is so preposterous that veteran science-fiction writers everywhere must be rolling their eyes.
- John Hartl, Seattle Times, November 17, 2011
It's a credit to the director's persistence of vision that he finds such eerie images to adorn this wispy tree of death. Like a newborn planet, "Melancholia" is magnetically beautiful, but it's also an unformed mass of hot air.
- Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 21, 2011
