The Tree of Life

Oh The Tree of Life, you are the most beautiful but yet one of the most pretentious things I have ever seen.  Terrence Malick has really taken his style to the extreme here.  Along for the ride are great actors Brad Pitt and Sean Penn.  Also a beautiful upcoming actress Jessica Chastain who shows a lot of promise here.

What plot to this film is about a family in Texas in the 50s or 60s, never really specifies on the time.  Who experience the death one of their three sons early on.  Then it shows how the parents are grieving and how on the one of the sons grown up (Penn) now, also grieving still.  Then it shows the beginning of the universe and the earth.   After that, back to how this family was before the tragedy.  The mother (Chastain) is a graceful woman who wants her kids to be graceful. The father (Pitt) stern and pushes his sons too much.

There are a lot praises for this film and a lot of complaints.  The films cinematography is beautiful, some of the best I have ever seen.  The moments when Malick takes the film back into time showing us dinosaurs, and the formation of the Earth is incredible too.  Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain are both great in this,  especially Brad Pitt here.  Pitt generally plays likeable characters, but here he does a great job in wanting us to truly be angry at him. 

With all of that being said, the film needs a stronger narrative.  Some critics defending this film, calling it an masterpiece, said how can you love 2001: A Space Odyssey and not think this film is on the same level.  2001 was doing new things with special effects, production design, it was one of the first films to treat sci-fi seriously, and it influenced countless number of directors, like Lucas, Cameron, Spielberg, Nolan, and Scott.
This film is not doing anything new in my opinion. With the exception of a fifteen - twenty minute sequence on the creation the Earth and Universe.  There are shots here that are meaningless.  Every shot in 2001 had a meaning behind it.

Speaking of Kubrick, at the premier of his films he would count every person who would walk out.  I also do that too when I watch an artistic film in theaters, and I counted 23 walk outs at this showing.  I do not hate or like this film, but I do admire its beauty and its few bold moments.  If you are into Malick's films yeah go see it in theaters.  If not, then its best to stay home.

rating = 64%