Kirsten Dunsthas been a fixture in our pop culture landscape for so long now that she’s been taken for granted, especially when you consider how long it took herto get nominated for an Oscar. It’s not for nothing that all the press surrounding her current career has framed it as a momentous comeback, highlighting the constant challenges in perception she’s undergone throughout her life.Graduating from a promising child acting career intact is no small feat, let alone proving herself to have so many different arrows in her quiver while firing them with ease. An evolution like that takes many stages, and she steadily grew from her naturally sunny aura to adding diverse shades to her repertoire.That transition reached its major turning point when she teamed up with supreme provocateurLars von Trierfor his masterpiece,Melancholia.
Kirsten Dunst Started Out as an Effervescent Child Star
Kirsten Dunst started out playing kids that could best be described as"smart asses who are just as rambunctious as they are endearing,“as exemplified by her legendary 1994 double-bill ofInterview with the VampireandLittle Women. As Claudia, the young girl turned into a vampire by Lestat (Tom Cruise), Dunst gives us a precursor of the work she would eventually do with her greatest influence,Sofia Coppola.Claudia yearns too thirstily for the pleasures of vampire life but is also tortured by the eternal youth she’s been cursed with, raging against the gilded cage she didn’t ask for. It was a performance so powerful thatAnne Rice, the author of the original novel,spoke outabout how much love she felt for her.
As Amy, the youngest sister of the March family, she’s eager to take the crumbs of attention that she can, performing little acts of whimsy to cover for an insecurity of love. From appreciating the divinity of butter to burning the manuscript of her sister Jo (Winona Ryder), Amy makes herself known at all times, often serving as the spark the family needs to bring some of their underlying anxieties to light.Dunst would continue this trend of playing kids who are unafraid to stand up for themselvesin films likeJumanjiandSmall Soldiersbut underwent a significant shift once she hit her teenage years.
‘The Virgin Suicides’ Kickstarted Kirsten Dunst’s Mature Career
WithThe Virgin Suicides, playing a teenage girl who yearns to overcome the disappointments of life,Dunst moved into her adult years with a renewed feeling of security and belief in herself. She has always been outspoken abouthow much importance writer-director Sofia Coppola has to her, indicating how she was the first person in the industry who really made her feel beautiful and accepted for who she was, and that gave her the confidence to embrace roles that let her be more flawed. Films likeDrop Dead GorgeousandDicklet her play into her comedic side more, providing a more biting commentary on the pros and cons of being a teenager while maneuvering the adult world of America.
A Kirsten Dunst Character Invented the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” Trope
Nathan Rabin’s critique of Dunst’s character sparked the discussion around the quirky magic girl trope
The combined releases ofBring It On,Crazy/Beautiful, andThe Cat’s Meowpositioned her as officially moving into the realm of “movie star,“proclaiming herself as fully tapped into her powers and ready to experiment with them. This period would carry her throughout the 2000s, fitting herself perfectly into numerous genres, including the pop art highs of theSpider-Mantrilogy, the snappily cute rom-com world ofWimbledon, and the riot grrl revisionism ofMarie Antoinette. What binds these roles together is the marriage between the flinty resolve and aching for understanding that she brings to them all, upfront with their desires and pragmatic in their conception of their own worlds. Nevertheless, this streak wasn’t satisfying enough, especially for someone as auteur-driven as Dunst, and she sought out a new challenge. Luckily for her, she would cross paths with just the right people who would set her on a new path.
Paul Thomas Anderson Suggested Dunst to Lars von Trier
Kirsten Dunst first came into Von Trier’s purview thanks to the advocacy of another noted cinematic troublemaker,Paul Thomas Anderson.Von Trier said inMelancholia’s Cannes press conference thathe’d been contemplating the idea ofMelancholiafor years, and was discussing it with PTA. Despite having never personally worked with her on a project,Anderson vouched for Kirsten Dunst. This was intriguing to Von Trier, as he had seen her in many things, but had never worked with her, either.When the two got in touch and discussed the role,
Von Trier was particularly impressed byher being in touch with her ownexperience with depression, even going so far as to show him photos of herself she had taken in that state of mind. SinceMelancholiawould be a film fundamentally about depression and its destructive effects on people, Von Trier felt this gave her an important sense of memory that other actors wouldn’t be able to harness. Despite the heaviness of the material, Dunst would look back on this film fondly, citing it as “beautiful” and recalling how she felt especially proud of this film, citing how difficult it is to portray depression onscreen. That difficult gamble paid off, as Von Trier and Dunst collaborated to make one of the greatest artistic statements on depression ever put to film.
Kirsten Dunst Gives the Defining Performance of Her Career in ‘Melancholia’
Serving as a metaphor for the all-encompassing deathgrip that depression can have and the idea that those with depression are more mentally prepared for catastrophes, “Melancholia” is the world’s worstwedding crasherin the form of a planet. When Justine (Dunst) regresses into a major depressive episode that leads her to quit her oppressive job and torpedo the empty marriage she just committed to, a giant planet is slowly coming to crash into Earth, leaving her and her family to sit and deal with it. Everyone else is petrified and steadily incapable of confronting their fate, but Justine grows more focused and at peace; now that the world is in a situation that she’s been mentally ready to embrace for most of her adult life.
A woman utterly despondent and hopeless becomes one who is resigned yet satisfied, content with her place in the cosmos. For a film that gives almost no exposition about its characters, borrowing from theinfamous Dogme 95style of storytelling,we get such a vivid picture of who Justine is and that’s because of Dunst’s devoted performance. you may feel how much she’s trying to make the best of a life choice she seemingly didn’t ask for, often stuck gazing into the abyss by herself, waiting for something in her life to make sense.
Dunst was correct in her assessment that depression is hard to depict visually, as it often comes across as a blandly numbed experience, defined solely by anhedonia.What Dunst taps into is when the paralysis is so extreme that it becomes abject pain, rendering her barely above a vegetative state. At points, it’s so severe that she can barely lift herself out of a bathtub or walk herself downstairs, needing her sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), to lead her to the table, all while mewling like an injured animal. It’s so soul-draining that even eating is too much, as food that she loves now “tastes like ashes,” spoken with a quaking brittleness that shatters more than a full monologue could convey. It isn’t until the planet gets closer that Justine starts to evolve, becoming more cutting and unsentimental in hernihilism.
She harbors no desire to entertain any notions of survival, believing life on Earth to be “evil” and destined to be short-lived. This leads to a conflict with Claire, who is frantic in her need to be consoled, and Justine constantly repudiates her efforts to connect before it’s too late, with no empathy or consideration.Coupled with this is her radical acceptance of oblivion, with an undertone of relieved appreciation hiding in plain sight, with traces of Dunst’s signatureCheshire Cat grinbelying the fate she’s longed for.
Kirsten Dunst’s Commitment to Strong Visions Has Led To Her Continued Excellence
What made this performance different from what Dunst had done before washow much she committed to the ugliest aspects of her character, with no apologizing.While many of her previous characters could be said to have unflattering traits, the movie usually worked to massage those faults and remind us of how worthy of our admiration or empathy they were. Justine is a person who actively drowns herself in her vices and pushes away any sense of endearment, all while the film endorses her by adopting her viewpoint and emphasizinghow her mental health leads her to know things others don’t.
The way she swings from drain-circling physical despair to being preternaturally wise about the absurdity of human existence provided Dunst with the richest character arc of her career at that stage, which she carried off with deceptive precision. So much so that, whenMelancholiawas released at theCannes Film Festival, it led to Kirsten Dunst winning Best Actress, somehow the first major award recognition of her career.Many critics also pointed outwhat a watershed moment this was for her career, as this was a performance with an intensity and depth of tragedy that she hadn’t channeled before.
Lars von Trier Derailed Kirsten Dunst’s Oscar Chances
It was a shift that should have led to more of a public recognition of the brave evolution that Dunst had chosen to pursue, but that prospect was sorely handicapped immediately at the Cannes press conference for the film. It was hard to appreciate the film for too long after hearingLars Von Trier’s remarkably context-free assertion that he “understood Hitler,“while Dunst sat next to him reacting in a way that can only be described as the textbook definition of “cringe.” Even given Von Trier’s long history of being a miserable nihilist who dodges allegations of misogyny byseeming to hate all humanity equally, it’s hard to imagine how he thought sharing a thought like that would engender any kind of goodwill.
He may have a reputation for being a troll in his contempt for most senses of taste or restraint,eager to rustle the jimmies of audiences and critics galore, but overt Nazi sympathizing wasn’t on the bingo card of anybody who wanted to vouch for his well-deserved enfant terrible reputation. It’s also worth noting that while she did not name him, musical iconBjörkmade allegations of sexual harassmentagainst a Danish director she worked with, of which there is only one — Lars von Trier. His comments at Cannes had such an instantaneous blowback that it’s fairly well accepted that the Cannes jury wanted to awardMelancholiathe Palme d’Or, but refused to do so after he made those comments. Therefore,Kirsten Dunst’s Best Actress win was somewhat tainted by the suggestion that they gave it to her as a consolation prizefor the film being swiftly taken out of proper competition.
By that logic, it stands to reason thatsuch a controversy proved to derail what could have been (and really should have been) her first Oscar nomination. Part of why it took Dunst so long to be taken “seriously” as an actor was that she never got any major mainstream recognition, even as her profile steadily rose over the years. She built her early career largely off of films that weren’t considered “worthy” of awards, usually due to a bias against anything “genre” (likethe Spider-Mantrilogy) or films that were angled at female audiences (like the films she made withSofia Coppola), a bias that awards bodies are still struggling to work past to this day.
Kirsten Dunst Deserved More Recognition For Her Performance in ‘Melancholia’
Melancholiawas the film that, on paper, had everything lined up to get her an inaugural Oscar nod: a gorgeously crafted drama that dealt with major themes of mental health and existential terror that gave its lead actress a meaty role that let her do showy acting like monologuing and crying out in pure anguish. If we’re being honest, this is far from the first role that she should have been nominated for, but if any film could have broken that ceiling for her, it’s this one. But no award campaign can survive being kneecapped right at the starting line, particularly by the person responsible for the film’s existence.
Regardless,Melancholiawould become the fork-in-the-road moment of her career,where she officially moved beyond the cool All-American girl energy that was her staple and redefined herself as a performer adept at covering her intensely bubbling core with a hardened shell. While this has led her to commit to generally harsher dramas, even her comedic work tends to revolve around women struggling to keep their anxieties and nefarious deeds at bay, like inthe second season ofFargoor her underseen showOn Becoming a God in Central Florida.
Fulfilling the potential of her initial confidence boost as a teenager, she became more selective with her projects and devoted herself to working with the most vision-driven directors in the business, including reuniting with Coppola and working withJeff Nichols, andJane Campion. Be it the repressed hunger ofEdwina inThe Beguiledor the steadily desperate sickness of Rose inThe Power of the Dog(the role that earned her her first Oscar nomination), Kirsten Dunst has continued to prove herself as fearless in the depths to which she’ll explore for the inner truth, keeping us glued to her every little motion, eager to know what’s really going on inside. To borrow a phrase from one of the seminal films of her career, may the Dunst-ocracy continue to reign!
