The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life

Starring: Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain, Hunter McCracken

Directed by: Terrence Malick

Reviewed by: Conor Flynn

With an extravagant film title, ‘The Tree of Life’ clearly has lofty ambitions; but does it reach the heights it clearly aspires to? The story is multifaceted; centring on the life of Jack (Penn), from his birth, through to his latter days as an adult, how he struggles with his brothers death, spirituality and his affections for his mother (Chastain), along with reconciling differences with his caring, yet highly domineering father (Pitt). The film is a complex piece and my above story summation only scratches the surface.

The film recalls the visual splendours of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. Hardly a surprise considering this film was photographed by none other than Douglas Trumbell, the genius behind the visual effects of sci-fi classics such as ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’. Visually ‘The Tree of Life’ is breathtaking and magical to watch, something missing from cinema for decades. The visuals are accompanied to perfection by a truly beautiful score which sweeps you away. It’s stunning, but what about the narrative? This is where the film is a bit of a let down…

The criticisms which follow may seem harsh, but I can’t deny them, despite wanting to fully embrace the film. Director Terrence Malick completely struggles with what the rest of us mere mortals term ‘a sense of reality;’ his philosophers characters tend to ponder the extremities of existentialism; there’s no time whatsoever for chugging a beer until you pass out. What we have then is a film which is intellectually stimulating aurally and visually, but emotionally tepid, maybe even banal. Just to understand what I’m getting at, it suffers from the same problem inherent with the worst excesses of a Quentin Tarantino film, each character tends to sound the same; therefore you have an adolescent exposing his inner Freudian turmoil of wanting his father murdered. It just doesn’t ring true, not helped by the child’s unusually poetic and automaton delivery.

At times the film is extremely simplistic in what it is trying to say, which amounts to a life lesson which states that if you are nice to others, you will have a fulfilling life, but it does it in a very heavy handed way, as if Malick is pummelling the idea in your face which also leads to unintentionally amusing moments, amongst them; where Brad Pitt channels his ‘Fight Club’ Tyler Durden persona, but with children. ‘The Tree of Life’ will be chastised by some as art-house bilge. If philosophising on the meaning of it all doesn’t float your boat, steer well clear of this film. For everyone else, art hasn’t been this epically contentious in years and for that alone, it’s a towering achievement.

‘The Tree of Life’ is worth the ticket price alone for its sublime visuals and absolutely exquisite soundtrack, but narrative wise; it isn’t satisfying enough on first viewing. It could take a subsequent screening or ten in order to fully appreciate this one.