The Tree Of Life review
I thought about a lot of things during “The Tree of Life.” Because there is so much to look at but so little to draw you in narratively your mind is free to wander for the first hour or so of the film. It takes about that long for writer/director Terrence Malick to actually give you a scene where dialogue is spoken onscreen that starts at A and ends at B. The hour previous is filled with endless snapshots of life, starting with the O’Brien family (Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain & sons) growing up in 1950s Texas. All words here are spoken with a whisper, overtop of the film as it skips from one scene to the next you keep waiting for it to touch down long enough to give you a chance to hold onto something. But instead of landing there the film skips back to the creation of the universe.
On first viewing, “The Tree of Life” is a frustrating experience as you wrestle with your own disappointment. For all the breathtaking shots included in the film, how many of them actually meant something? So many scenes in the film seem to be included only because they’re pretty to look at and not because they have any impact on the story, it’s characters or how it might affect the overall narrative. If Malick wants to make a nature documentary, he should go ahead and do it so he can get it out of his system. The film wallows in beautiful images to the detriment of feeling. I wondered what the crew who worked on the film must have thought watching it for the first time, “All that footage we got and this is the the best you could do?”
Because the film is filled with such beautiful imagery and like very few films, manages to capture moments of true beauty, fans of the director will find plenty to like. The films gaps will be filled in by the viewer who wants this to be a great film. For most people though it will be an impossible slog, a shapeless mess with almost nothing tying the two threads together. I find myself somewhere in the middle. During the first act of the film I found myself hopelessly checked out (save a few gorgeous wordless moments that brought up the music) and then the film settles in for a while, maybe 45 minutes or so and shows you it’s not so impossible after all. It focuses on the O’Briens, particularly their son Jack who grows angry and resentful at his hard-ass father. For me, this is the section that works best.
Then comes the resolution, puzzlingly reaching for profundity when the elements haven’t even begun to cohere. Sean Penn appears in a few minutes of the film as grown Jack, he wakes up, he goes to work and he shows up in the finale. Any insight into his character is completely projected by the audience because his role has been stripped bare. Its hard to hate a film this ambitious (and I don’t) but it’s frustrating to see so much talent go to waste on a project like this. Having only seen each of Malick’s films once (and having liked them in descending order “Badlands” best and this least), I realize it may take another viewing of each to see if there is more to be found. Is it beautiful to look at? Absolutely, it’s probably one of the most stunningly shot films I’ve ever seen. But is it engaging emotionally? Only intermittently. And it’s hard to give a pass to a film that’s such a passive experience. Oh well.
