Dune

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Running time: 2hrs35 | REVIEWED BY CATHERINE BRAY

Oscar Isaac stars in Dune

This review originally ran at the Venice Film Festival

Something I’ve read multiple times is that superhero films — or fantasy films more broadly — are the descendants of the likes of Greek myths or Anglo-Saxon laments about the hero and his quest for victory over a villainous would-be overlord type. Hell, I’ve probably written this myself. It’s true. But it’s an incomplete truth. 

Art isn’t what happens in a story — it’s how it happens. Game Of Thrones felt bracing because although it had its moments of high pomp and heroism, it took place in a world where people laughed, and breathed, and shat themselves, and died unfairly, without any tragic redemption. 

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a fantasy film go all out and fully commit to a mode of high seriousness, and I suspect that if what you love most about Marvel is the quips, you might not like Dune very much. Directed by Denis Villeneuve, adapted from Frank Herbert’s novel, it is deadly serious. It took me a little while to get into this register of storytelling, but luckily Dune gives you a long while. It’s a magnificent epic. Breathtaking, really. It never hedges its bets. It never breaks the tension with a smart aleck remark. As a sand-worm rampages towards a mining vessel, you will hear someone say, “It’s a big one,” but you will not hear someone else reply, “Hey, size ain’t everything!” 

I have, of course, enjoyed many films and TV shows with quips in, but their absence here is pure tonic, a relief I hadn’t realised I needed. The world-building in Dune has to be taken seriously or the whole thing would fall apart like a house of cards — on the face of it, it’s all a bit daft — and so we need to believe the characters believe. And the actors here all give good, serious performances, but in a sense it isn’t an actor’s film, because they are playing archetypes: chosen one, tragic king, arch villain, handsome rogue and so forth. 

On my way back from the screening to write this review, I read a news piece about Dune headlined “Timothée Chalamet Hopes for Sequel”. I was brought up short, almost shocked: this is a such a monumental film, I had completely failed to even contemplate the possibility that it could be an incomplete monument, that it could flop; it feels so completely sure of itself and so legitimately stunning, that it’s a huge shame that the next chapter is in fact subject to the whims of the marketplace. I’m right there with you, Timmy — surely, there has to be more.

DUNE (2021) Written by Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, Eric Roth | Shot by Greig Fraser | Edited by Joe Walker

In cinemas now