Review: The Tree of Life (2011)

The Tree of Life

Rating

Director

Terrence Malick

Screenplay

Terrence Malick

Length

2h 19m

Starring

Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain, Hunter McCracken, Laramie Eppler, Tye Sheridan Fiona Shaw, Nicholas Gonda

MPAA Rating

PG-13

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Review

Terrence Malick is in love with landscapes and that passion is fully on display in The Tree of Life, a film with deep philosophical concepts running in a current under a traditional story of 1960s suburban life. And its in these beautiful images that the film soars, yet for all its beauty, Malick’s film feels a touch hollow at times. This has little to do with Brad Pitt’s able performance or Sean Penn’s meandering ruminations. Even the superb Jessica Chastain can’t keep the film from feeling like creativity and conventional narrative structure are fighting each other for dominance.

The film has great spans of film stock devoted to an unraveling of the creation of the universe. In a lengthy, yet beautiful series of brilliant Douglas Trumbull-created visual effects, the earth is created from a cluster of space dust, eventually drawn into the beautiful landscapes that surround us. Each historical interlude punctuated by recitations of scripture and lamentations to God, the film is unclear whether it supports the idea of an otherworldly being controlling the chaos or that we simply use the idea of Heaven and divine intervention as a way to alleviate the burden of pain. And its this latter sentiment that prevails.

You don’t make an art film without finding flaws and there are certainly many. While the first act of the film is split almost fairly between the foundation of the universe, the present, and the recent past, the film eventually settles into the 1960s without seeming to look back. That narrative, in spite of its realistic elements reminding me partly of my own childhood in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, there’s nothing deep or interesting at that point in the story. You feel trapped in a slow, unexceptional narrative directive without a sense of purpose. The film wanders aimlessly through childhood angst, the desire to perform acts of rebellion, and a crumbling, yet loving family environment.

There are two distinct films being made here and while the opening frames of The Tree of Life are some of the finest in memory, there’s little in the middle-to-late section of the film worth noting. Matter of fact, had a fair chunk of the developing sibling relationship been cut from the film, it wouldn’t have lost much of its impact. While it’s understandable that this sets up the relationship between present day Jack and his late brother, explaining an early-film phone call with a mysterious listener and then the final act trip into the subconscious imagination, it drags down an otherwise impressive film.