For anyone who has lived with or been around mental illness—and who has not?—Melancholia is a must-see movie.
 
The characters are richer and better looking than we are, but we have all been to the wedding at the center of this film. You don’t need a medical degree to know that the bride, Justine, is seriously unstable; you would be, too, if you’d grown up in her family.
 
In between bouts of acting out, Justine cleans up beautifully and tries—really, really tries— to be normal.  She writes dazzling advertising copy.  She reaches out and begs to connect with her cold–as-ice mother and her alcoholic father, even after they spew tasteless toasts at the wedding dinner.
 
Her young nephew Leo worships her, and Justine adores him back when she is not too debilitated to get out of bed.
 
Justine’s sister Claire is the family’s designated responsible adult.   Every family with mental health issues has at least one, and Justine has a SEAL team of ‘em. 
 
Claire thinks she can cure her sister’s depression with a fairy tale wedding and some homemade meatloaf.  The hapless groom is convinced that all Justine needs is a house in the country and some kids of her own.  Claire’s husband thinks his power, money and brains will protect his loved ones from any problem man or God might throw at them.
 
But time is running out for this codependent commune.

A planet called Melancholia is hurtling toward earth. “All the real scientists” are predicting a “fly-by” that will provide earthlings with great stories to tell their grandchildren, while the folks on the Internet message boards are predicting the end of the world.
 
We learn in the opening sequence that the Internet people are right.
 
In the movies, as in life, crisis reveals character.  As Justine and her family come to understand that Melancholia is a death star, they—and we—find out who is and is not crazy.
 
Film critics have focused on Melancholia’s salacious snippets, and indeed, Kirsten Dunst’s breasts ought to have individual supporting cast billing. But it would be a mistake to dismiss this movie as soft core porn for fans of the apocalypse genre.
 
Florida spends billions on social service programs aimed at mitigating the harm done by the “crazy people” among us.  A lot of this money finances well-meaning but underinformed folks like Justine’s family who think that any problem can be fixed with love and money.
 
As we watch Justine rise to the ultimate occasion, we discover that “crazy people” may have more to teach us than “sane people” want to admit.

________________

Melancholia has been extended for another week at All Saints in Tallahassee. Call for show times. Florence Snyder is a corporate and First Amendment lawyer. Contact her at lawyerflo@gmail.com.