The Tree of Life

WARNING: This review is hidden because it reveals the content of the film.
Click here to show this review. This movie tackled a difficult theme, and for me it failed on several levels. The first was the disconnect with Malick's own 'meaning of life'. A National Geographic slideshow with choral music, albeit soaring music, along with a clumsy attempt at the origins of life, followed by the evolution of life (which contained the trite metaphor of Jurassic compassion) does not 'The Meaning of Life" make. The images are beautiful and do inspire an absolute wonder at nature, but they are a Hollywood over-the-top attempt to induce an appreciation of the wonder of a single moment and the eternity that is contained therein. The acting in the family chronology is of the highest order, especially by the two young boys and Brad Pitt. But this section seems to want to move off to the notion of Universal Love and the Divine spirit which is light years away from the very temporal notion of the origins of the earth. The other big disconnect for me was the switch from organic imagery to an obsession with angular architecture in the latter stages. I think this was Pitt and Penn inserting their own romance with architecture in their off-screen lives into this cosmic farce. As I said, there were stunning imagery and superb acting, but the subject matter was too big for the principals involved here.