Women in Film: The Tragic Transformation of Kirsten Dunst in ‘All Good Things’

The true story of Robert Durst is fairly distressing, as in yikes, what the smuckers is that all about? Just a glance and it’s easy to see why screenwriters Marcus Hinchey and Marc Smerling were like, yup, we’re doing this. Romance, betrayal, murder, and a health food store? Bingo. It writes itself. Sort of. Director Andrew Jarecki‘s film is a quality watch, well-acted and attentive to the facts, boosted by some A-list performances, but its also rather generic with a I-got-nothing-from-this feeling as the credits roll expect, yeah, Kirsten Dunst is frickin’ amazing. Let’s me explain.

Ryan Gosling is David Marks (based on Durst), living in New York City in the 1970s. His father, Sanford Marks (Frank Langella) is an enormously successful real estate tycoon who becomes frustrated by David’s lack of drive after marrying a middle class woman named Katie McCarthy (Dunst),then moving to Vermont to open a health food store in a bitty countryside village. Instead of embracing David’s ambitions for a peaceful lifestyle, Sanford convinces David to give it up and return to the city, making him believe that it’s best for Katie. It is not. It is absolutely not.

This is laid bare when Katie happily suggests they have children, as young couples are want to do, but to which she is angrily denied, forced to have an abortion when she does become pregnant (he doesn’t even show up for the appointment!). Things steadily fall apart, even as she tries to better herself with medical school, though she is certain there is a deeper meaning behind David’s adamant refusal to have kids. She seeks a separation, but lacks the finances, and then, when she attempts to privately dig into the history of the Marks’, what happens? She’s a gone girl, straight up missing.

Jarecki’s film centers on David, Gosling portraying Durst as a quiet yet highly combustible figure compressed by his own dark past, a secret that when revealed is horrific, yes, but doesn’t offer the insight into why David is so off kilter that it feels primed to be. However, Gosling has always been very good at playing troubled, introverted characters, his best roles ones where he expresses with silence rather than in words. Here, it’s a mix, with David Marks from the beginning feeling a few pegs to the left in terms of stable, Gosling perfecting the I’m-all-torn-up-inside face. I enjoyed his performance, a reckless quality lingering over a sense of mystery, but that only got me so far, as I never quite wrapped my head around who this guy was, especially by the third act when things just got all kinds of huh? Is it based on reality? Yes, but I didn’t much care mostly because the film keeps him in a void where it’s impossible to either empathize with his plight nor reject him for his cruelty. Look out for a brief but memorable bit from the late great Philip Baker Hall though. Good stuff.

Either way, there’s more to all this than just Katie, and that’s part of the problem because it’s Katie that keeps the wheels spinning. No Katie and the whole show screeches to a crash. David gets entangled in string of deceits and deaths that are connected to his wife’s disappearance but somehow don’t add anything to the story; it just becomes unwieldy. We become so invested in Katie that when it’s time to focus on the aftermath or her disappearance, it as hard as eating plain broccoli when you know there’s ice cream in the freezer. Without Katie, All Good Things is without heart.

That’s on Dunst. If you know anything about her, you know she’s an actor with a unique appeal, and as Katie she’s well, pretty dang good. The transformation Dunst commits to is of course the centerpiece of the entire film, a young woman believing at first she has found true happiness only to become ensnared in a trap that she never saw coming (who would?). It’s a deeply moving performance that Dunst is careful not to overwork, understanding perhaps that it is Katie’s suppressed yearning for wholeness as a woman and a partner that keeps us entrenched in her fate. Directed or not, Dunst finds ways to let Gosling lead every conversation, every interaction, and each conflict, keeping herself at a distinct physically submissive position that almost instinctively leaves us wanting to care about her. Watch how she slowly corrodes Katie’s enthusiasm into utter despair. You can’t take your eyes off her.

There are moments throughout that we can pin as pivots in Katie’s breakdown, each beautifully layered on the next by Dunst as she moves Katie from supportive ingenue to despondent victim, traveling along a solitary path of deception and trauma. I think what struck me most about Dunst in this film is how impactful her presence remains even in her absence. This is due in part to some smart choices by Jarecki in how he handles the mystery of Katie’s disappearance, there one frame and then simply, suddenly, gone the next. It is a testament to what Dunst does in getting the film to that point that I say deserves her performance a second look.

There is something starkly raw in what Dunst does, even as she smiles, this steak of pain weighing on her face so heavily that she looks as if she might crumble at the lightest wisp. That resonates in the film with such force that I found it hard to concentrate in the final act, feeling as if the story had robbed me of its purpose, which I suppose is the point. That is what loss does.

It’s too bad that despite Gosling’s fine efforts, the story itself doesn’t make his side of it all that compelling, David’s staid, rather placid affect on most of the plot leaving me less interested in his end of the deal than Katie’s. I have no doubt that much of that is because of how strongly I connected with her arc than I did with his. To some degree, I credit Jarecki and the screenwriters with giving the victim a chance to have a place in the plot, rather than just a body in the murderous schemes of a monster, something many in the genre don’t. So watch All Good Things, knowing that it’s not a perfect film, that you may walk away unfulfilled, but that at its core is a character and a performance that should earn your respect. Kirsten Dunst is every reason why you should put this on your list.