Melancholia - synposis

Act I

At her wedding reception at an extravagant golf resort, a young bride named Justine has married her groom Michael. They are late to the reception as Justine wants to introduce

her husband to her beloved horse Abraham, kept in the stable. Her sister Claire finds them and chastises them for their tardiness, forcing them to join their waiting guests.

At the festivities speeches are made, including an acid-tongued diatribe by Justine’s mother Gaby, and another by Jack, her father-in-law, who also is Justine’s boss. Jack

has asked Tim, a young employee at the PR-agency where Justine also works, to find Justine and ask her for a tagline for a work-related promotional campaign. Throughout the reception Justine becomes more and more disconnected, seized by a bout of depression – a “gray wooly yarn” that envelopes her. She excuses herself from the celebration and finds herself in a bathtub with her mother, who goes off about the empty rituals of marriage. Justine is surprised by Michael, who privately gives Justine a wedding gift: an orchard of apples. It is Michael’s hope that the serenity of the orchard might be welcome for Justine’s unsound mind. She cannot muster much interest in the apples and rejoins the party.

When Tim, once again ask Justine for a tagline she instead takes him to a golf green and they have primal intercourse, which Michael is witness to. Justine returns to a food truck serving a midnight meal where she curses out Jack, and expresses her supreme displeasure working for him, effectively refusing an offer of promotion, and terminating her position.

Soon, all of the guests depart, leaving only Justine and Claire as well as Claire’s husband John and son Leo. Leo has news of a planet – Melancholia – that is on a warpath with Earth, but should narrowly miss direct collision.

Act II

The next morning after a horseback ride, Claire and Justine experiment with a new contraption, a measuring device made by John that is meant to track the distant planet. John

assures Claire that the planet isn’t getting any larger. Shortly thereafter, Justine’s depression flares, as Claire helps her get into the bathtub, her body unable to step into the porcelain. Then a moment of surrealism, as Justine becomes Ophelia, floating in the water, her sadness taking on Shakespearian dimensions. Armed with his measuring contraption, we witness John understand the reality that the planet is indeed rocketing towards earth at an alarming speed.

John, no longer able to protect his family, commits suicide. Claire finds her husband’s dead body and condemns his cowardly final act. She then finds Justine and begs her for a moment of sisterly connection as the end draws near. Justine, Claire and Leo create a “cave” as the planet Melancholia begins to take up the stage visually and musically.