Why don’t people go see Kirsten Dunst movies anymore? Remember the turn of the millennium when she was the hot actress, bouncing between quirky comedies and intense dramas with the ease of performers twice her age? Routinely bringing something fresh to the screen, she possessed an intelligence and offbeat beauty that set her apart from her peers, even when starring in a billion dollar Hollywood franchise. Take that K.Stew! Within just a few years, Dunst had fulfilled the promise she showed in her breakout role as Claudia in Interview With The Vampire and audiences could not help but be drawn to her smart, diverse choices. A poster child for new Hollywood, this was not your average Tinsel-Town blonde, and movie fans knew it.
Starting in the late 90’s with the underrated indie comedy, Dick and cult-fave Drop Dead Gorgeous, Kirsten displayed a genuine screen presence and an ability to find comedy and or drama in the everyday nuances of character. This reached its culmination with her brilliant work in Sophia Coppola’s indie directing debut, The Virgin Suicides. Holding the camera’s gaze for nearly the entire length of the ethereal film, she’s not only a vision of youth and innocence, but also a bruised beauty with an ocean of emotions simmering below the service. Not many young actresses could pull off such a quiet, self-conscious role, but Kirsten knocked it out of the park.
Yet she didn’t seem to get the critical and commercial respect she deserved until 2000-2001 when a diverse trifecta of starring roles caught everyone’s attention. In Bring it On she gave us full-on Hollywood movie-star charisma. In fact, I don’t think a rising star has exuded more bubbly charm since Cameron Diaz almost outshined Julia in My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Next was Crazy, Beautiful in which Dunst turned what could have been a 70’s Tatum O’Neil-style after school special into a true portrait of self-destruction and young love. 2001’s The Cat’s Meow found her holding her own against brilliant stage performers like Eddie Izzard and Joanna Lumley in Peter Bogdanovich’s tale of one of the greatest mysteries of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Playing Marion Davies with wit and spunk, Dunst is an unexpected delight in the indie film. Clearly showing she couldn’t be typecast, Kirsten earned a well-deserved spot at the top of the new Hollywood A-list.
2002’s Spider-Man confirmed that not only did Kirsten Dunst possess A-List talent, but she could also pack audiences into theater seats. Accepting the gratuitous role of the girlfriend, she, along with Sam Raimi, her director, turned Mary Jane into a fierce livewire. Once again projecting full movie -star charisma, not to mention blistering chemistry with Tobey Maguire, she makes us understand why Spiderman risks life and limb for this girl.
Not your average comic book film, Spider-Man was a breakthrough for everyone involved, a big budget movie with the spirit of an indie. Combining intimate, personal filmmaking and spectacular special effects with first-rate acting, it was a huge commercial success. In fact, I don’t believe there would be a Dark Night series had it not been for Sam Raimi’s trilogy.
Grounding the story not in a fantastical realm of art-directed enchantment, but rather in the real world, Raimi made it clear that this was a new type of comic book hero, for a post 9-11 world. He might have superhuman strength, but he had the same problems that affect us all. And he couldn’t have pulled this off without Maguire and of course, Dunst! Needless to say, despite respecting indie director, Marc Webb, not to mention loving Emma Watson and Andrew Garfield, I don’t think the world really needed a reboot.
Of course, the two Raimi-directed Spider-Man sequels were a different story. Though the second one received mostly positive reviews, I found it overwrought and unnecessarily earnest. Devoid of the wonder and awe that made the first film so unique, it didn’t matter that both Dunst and Maguire gave strong, soulful performances. After the disappointment of that, I didn’t even see the third one- I know, what a great fan boy! I would have felt bad about it, but anyone who watched her press junkets for the films, particularly number three, could see that Kirsten had no use for them either.
It’s around this time, in the mid-Aughts, that the image of the homespun quirky beauty-next-door that she had worked so hard to develop for over a decade seemed to crack a bit. Despite some great parts in the indie gem Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and the erratic though unfairly maligned Elizabethtown– it wasn’t her fault, or Orlando Bloom’s for that matter, that Cameron Crowe miscast them, I’d have wanted to work with him as well- it just seemed like our girl needed a creative recharge. Dunst appeared to be suffering from Kristen Stewart- hot actress-itus, burnt out by the years of media scrutiny and practical slavedom to the promotional duties that accompany a big-budget studio franchise. Movies like Mona Lisa Smile and Wimbledon, two flat projects that seemed unworthy of her talents, were a result of this. She was bored, and so was her audience.
Ok, I need to take a second to air a huge beef of mine. I think that Marie Antoinette was easily one of the best films of 2006, perhaps even of the last decade. Sophia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst clearly speak the same cinematic language as together they have created some of the most beautiful images ever on celluloid. Just like Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette finds Dunst in all her ripe girlish beauty holding the camera’s focus indefinitely.
So what if you didn’t get enough backstory! The lavish production still feels as intimate as Lost In Translation, giving us a voyeuristic glimpse into the wonder and awe, not to mention the complete terror this young foreign girl must have felt being thrust into her role as the Queen of France. I am convinced however that this movie will hold up better than it initially fared and that Kirsten’s performance as the doomed Queen will eventually be recognized as the top-tier display of intimate camera acting that it is.
However unfair the response, the commercial and somewhat critical failure of Marie Antoinette, seemed to force Kirsten to take a step back from acting, if not necessarily from the public eye. There was the break-up with Jake Gylenhaal, and subsequent string of grungy rocker boyfriends-though thank God, never John Mayer, and the constant paparazzi shots of her leaving clubs intoxicated around the world.
While partying like this, to me, seemed completely normal for a 20-something girl who had been working steadily since she was a toddler, and who had never had the chance to attend college, the public unfairly grouped her behavior in with that of other less accomplished, more US Weekly-appropriate “starlets”.
Even the smart decision to retreat from the public view and enter rehab in 2008 for undisclosed reasons was met with a collective groan as the 24-hour, TMZ, celebrity-rehab culture had reached its point of saturation. Though she had never abused her image in the media nor attempted to present herself as anything other than a hard-working actress, she was now being mentioned in the same vein as train-wrecks like Lindsey Lohan or Tara Reid. Even her most loyal fans, myself included, began to worry that our beloved KiKi D’s best parts were behind her. We should have known, however that she’d prove us all wrong!
Starting with 2008’s How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, Dunst has demonstrated a renewed vigor and focus in her acting, making some of the best movies of her career. Unfortunately, this time around, nobody’s seeing them. I will admit that I didn’t enjoy How To Lose Friends…, but only because I find Simon Pegg’s British-ness to be overwhelmingly obnoxious, like girls named Poppy, or fascinators. But aside from that I’ve loved the films of Kirsten 2.0!
If you haven’t seen All Good Things, or as I like to think of it, Ryan Gosling’s other 2010 film starring a blonde hot actress, you’re missing one taut and riveting suspense thriller. Overshadowed by the admittedly fantastic Blue Valentine and Michelle William’s supernaturally good performance in it, this psychological thriller about a wealthy man and his doomed wife is as smart and engaging as Reversal Of Fortune or Fincher’s The Game, with first rate performances from Gosling and of course, Dunst. Did I mention that their chemistry is palpable as well? Unique in being the first film released to Video On Demand on at -home cable boxes, the strategy was somewhat successful as more people got to see it, yet the movie suffered from the unfair maligning that a film receives without a proper theatrical release, as well as the media’s focus on Gosling’s and Williams indie film.
Back to the idea of palpable chemistry though, who knew that a curmudgeonly and perhaps sociopathic Danish director would find in Dunst a muse to create one of the most beautiful and deeply affecting films of his career? Lars von Trier isn’t exactly celebrated for his sense of humor and images of Technicolor beauty, but with his film, Melancholia, he showed us all that maybe he should be. As Justine, the manic- depressive yet luminous bride who finds her upcoming nuptials more terrifying than the end of the world, Dunst once again displays an intimate and personal relationship with the camera.
VonTrier holds his lens on her almost as long as Copolla, revealing her offbeat allure as well as the depth of character in her face that has only deepened with age. With Melancholia, we meet a Kirsten Dunst who has blossomed into a woman. All the quirks, carnality, and grace of her person have reached their utmost potential, allowing her to create her most fully realized character to date.
The film and Dunst, particularly were praised universally, and she deservedly won the top-acting prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. However, once again, barely anyone in this country saw the indie film, and perhaps because of von Trier’s off-putting personality (sympathizing with Hitler at a Cannes press conference for the film) the movie shockingly did not receive a single Oscar Nomination. Regardless of its reception, Melancholia stands so far as Dunst’s best film to date and I truly believe it will hold up significantly.
Though if not, at least it kicked off within Dunst a renewed vigor and career resurgence that has seen her put out some complex and fascinating work. 2012’s Bachelorette, following the same VOD release formula as All Good Things, was in fact mean-spirited and not as funny as Bridesmaids, but it’s still an entertaining rollick. Dunst’s scenes with Lizzie Caplan and Isla Fisher are easily better than any she had with Maggie Gyllenhall or Julia Styles in Hallmark Hall of Fame’s Mona Lisa Smile, and it’s nice to see KiKi get down and dirty. Checking their vanity and likability at the door, all three hot actresses give go-for-broke physical performances that make the indie film totally worth seeing.
Similarly uneven but ultimately rewarding is Walter Salles’s, On The Road. As Camille, one of Dean Moriarty’s main women, Dunst is heartbreakingly affecting, showing real heat with her onscreen love, Garret Hedlund. It might help that they are dating in real life, but so what! Unlike Kristen Stewart’s Marylou, Dunst’s role isn’t nearly as showy and in the hands of a lesser actress could have faded into the background.
Instead, she provides a conscience for the film, without being shrewish and unlikeable. And while I agree with the criticism that it’s too dreamy and doesn’t fully capture the spark of the Beat Generation, On The Road is still worth a view for the thrilling way it captures the freedom of young adulthood and the perilous abyss that is first love. Salles, clearly is an actor’s director, and all the performers shine in this indie flick, however none quite like Dunst.
Bottom: the right side up, with Jim Sturgess in “Upside Down” – (Studio 37)
Lucky for us all, a glance at her IMDB page shows that the actress has quite a few irons in the fire, even if not all of them burn hot enough to stoke the interest of the American public-can someone please make Upside Down available here? A Romeo and Juliet love story involving Dunst and the excellent Jim Sturgess as lovers who inhabit forbidden worlds existing on top of one another (check out the movie trailer for a glimpse of the Van-Gogh-ian visuals), it was made in France, and never found distribution here. C’mon Netflix!
CLICK HERE to see the trailer for Upside Down
Fortunately, while we wait, there’s always her large back catalogue to provide endless entertainment. An offbeat yet impossible to typecast onscreen presence who has continued to shine in both big budget flicks and indie gems for almost two decades, there is no other actor quite like Kirsten Dunst. She’s remained one of the brightest beacons of new Hollywood with a prolific second act that has seen her deliver her best work yet.