On the day of her wedding, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and her family gather at the palatial mansion owned by her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and wealthy husband John (Kiefer Sutherland). But despite the seeming perfection of her fiancé Michael (Alexander Skarsgård), Justine doesn't want to get married, and seeks to further escape her current life by resigning from her job at an advertising agency. As Justine confronts her personal existential crisis, existence itself is placed in jeopardy by an approaching meteor, which keeps über-rationalist John occupied in plotting its trajectory while Claire becomes terrified of an impending celestial collision. Placing personal anguish on the same level as cosmic destruction, von Trier boldly undermines the clichés of his end-of-the-world scenario and takes aim at some of the fundamental questions of existence. "[Melancholia] takes a baffling, almost bone-headed premise, the stuff of schlocky genre movies, and from it creates a mesmerizing, visually gorgeous and often moving alloy of family drama, philosophical meditation and anti-golfing tract" (Sukhdev Sandhu, The Daily Telegraph); "It's gorgeous to look at, deeply moody and atmospheric, and it's always in on its own grim little joke" (Stephanie Zacharek, Movieline).