Dune Is a Beautiful, Faithful Tease

L ast month, I asked a question: Will director Denis Villeneuve capture the greatness of Dune? Writing in advance of the release of Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi epic, I wondered if the film, which I have been anticipating for years, would end up as the masterpiece that the talent involved, both behind the camera and in front of it, suggested it could be. Having now seen Dune, I am pleased to report that the answer is, for the most part, yes — with one major caveat.

Here’s a brief summary for those of you who have somehow missed my borderline–obsessive writing about Dune. In the far future, mankind has taken to the stars, yet exists in a kind of feudal political arrangement: a grand empire in which competing dynastic families vie for dominance. One such family, the noble Atreides, takes control of the desert planet Arrakis (or Dune) from a rival dynasty, the malevolent Harkonnens. In ceaseless pursuit of the spice melange, a drug that exists only on Arrakis and that enables a kind of prescience for users on which space travel depends (making it the most important substance in the universe), the Harkonnens have oppressed the Fremen, the indigenous population of Arrakis. When the Atreides arrive, they seek to make amends with the Fremen, but their efforts are snuffed out when the Harkonnens, with the empire’s help (as it fears Atreides popularity), ambush the Atreides in an attempted extermination.

Meanwhile, Paul (Timothée Chalamet), the son of Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) and Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), the Duke’s concubine and a member of the enigmatic Bene Gesserit sect, has been having dreams about Arrakis, even before his arrival. They are suggestive of some kind of higher — and possibly disturbing — destiny there. He is the focus of Dune‘s story.

Dune is largely a faithful adaptation of Herbert’s epic. Screenwriters Jonathan Spaihts, Eric Roth, and Villeneuve himself have made occasional excisions and modifications, but nothing even remotely comparable to the unforgivable distortions of David Lynch’s misbegotten 1984 version. What is different here is mostly reasonable clarification or compression. Fans of the novel will thrill to the many passages from it translated to screen essentially as they appear in the text.

And everyone who sits down to watch Dune — ideally on the biggest screen available — will be impressed, if not enthralled outright, by the sheer beauty on display. Working with cinematographer Greig Frasier, Villeneuve builds upon the sci-beauty he showed a knack for in Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. Every frame of Dune is carefully staged, in intimate rooms, in vast desert expanses, and everything in between. CGI was obviously used, but great care was taken to make what appears before us as realistic in-universe as possible (surely supplemented by ample practical effects), while at the same time obviously supplying a glimpse into a wholly alien reality. With respect to Armond White, who preferred Lynch’s version of Dune‘s famous giant sandworms, I myself got chills the first time we see one depicted in full in Villeneuve’s version (after several scenes of horror-movie-style partial glimpses). And I could watch Fremen warriors emerge from the sand to fight all day long.

In fact, at times, while watching Dune, my eyes began to hurt — but only because, as I realized after being temporarily withdrawn by this sensation from the immersion of the film, I had forgotten to blink for long stretches of time, fearful of missing a single moment of what I saw on screen. (This sense of immersion was also the cause of my nearly lunging at another moviegoer to throw a ringing phone across the theater, given the disruption; fortunately, the ringing stopped quickly). Dune‘s look alone earns it a place in the classic sci-fi pantheon, to which it clearly and lovingly owes a great deal.

The stacked cast fortunate enough to inhabit these frames mostly lives up to its billing. As Leto, Oscar Isaac embodies tragic nobility. As Jessica, Rebecca Ferguson is simultaneously modest and supportive yet mysterious and dangerous. As the villainous Baron Harkonnen, Stellan Skarsgård is fittingly decadent, monstrous, and cunning. As the heroic Atreides soldier Duncan Idaho, Jason Momoa is fierce yet also loyal and even playful. As for Paul: Chalamet, playing a complex character, one easily misunderstood by readers and adapters alike, is adequate. If he is not quite at the same level as those around him, he is certainly elevated by their presence.

Indeed, I am disinclined to complain much at all about Dune. What complaints I do have are mostly quibbles: at an unnecessary modification here and there; at the failure of Hans Zimmer’s score to supply a truly memorable motif (though I do not think this was its purpose; rather, it was to supplement the alien aesthetic of what was seen, at which it succeeded spectacularly) — an unexpected defect relative to the indelible, Toto-supplied main theme of Lynch’s Dune; at the slight suspension of disbelief required to accept the waifish Chalamet as a fighting threat against characters played by Josh Brolin and Babs Olusanmokun. Again, however, these are quibbles. To dwell on them seems an act of ingratitude in the face of the actual arrival of a fully realized, lavish adaptation of one of my favorite books.

Or half of it, anyway. And this is my major complaint about Dune, which is actually shown on screen as Dune: Part One. Frank Herbert’s novel is expansive, and Lynch’s attempt to compress it into a single film was one of the many factors that led to his failure. Villeneuve’s solution to this problem was essentially to bisect the story. As a result, Dune does not end at a true climax, but rather a contrived one that leaves countless questions in the narrative unanswered. This is a defect on its own terms, in this sense, even as a divided adaptation. When, after this climax, I got a credits sequence, what I really wanted was an intermission. The true way to experience Dune, as Villeneuve has adapted it, would be to see both parts at once, Lawrence of Arabia–style, as I hope to do one day.

Alas, we must live in the present, unlike those with the spice. And it is no sure thing that there will be a Dune: Part Two. I certainly hope there will be, otherwise what Kyle Smith aptly described as “the longest prologue ever made” will have essentially been for naught. So, even though this Dune will leave you wanting more, do yourself a favor and experience it in the theater. You’ll enjoy it, even as a nonfan (not that I would know what that’s like) . . . and you’ll help ensure that we get to experience Villeneuve fully capture the greatness of Dune.