The Tree of Life
| Directed by: | Terrence Malick |
|---|---|
| Written by: | Terrence Malick |
| Cast: | Brad Pitt, Sean Penn. Jessica Chastain |
| Studio: | Fox Searchlight Pictures |
| Genre: | Drama |
| Official Site: |
Tomorrow is the 84th annual Academy Awards, and of all the films on the best picture list, the one people seem to be complaining about is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, for getting mixed reviews. Yet no one is complaining about The Tree of Life, which also split audiences straight down the middle. You either Love or hate this movie, and I'm on the hate side.
Now I will give the movie credit, there were two things that were very well done in this movie. The first is of course the cinemotography, this is a beautiful film, if nothing else, this movie might be worth viewing at least once if, like me, you want to become a director and want to see how great a film can look. The other thing the film did well was the relationship between father and son, maybe that's not how all fathers act, but that is a perfect representation of a father-son relationship. They love each other, but they also piss each other off.
Now for the stuff I didn't like. This movie had no story. Well ok, it did have a story, but not enough to film a film that's almost 2.5 hours long. Most of the movie is just pretty images that have no context to the plot, including a twenty minute scene involving the creation of the universe. And did it look nice, yes it did, but that didn't stop it from being really boring. The diolouge is pretensious, no one talks like a real person in this movie, they have to over complicate every single sentence just to make themselves sound smart, when in fact they aren't saying anything. It tries to say stuff about so many things: Family, God, the Universe, death, life, where do we belong, yet in the end it doesn't answer any of these questions. This is the 2001 of our generation, but at least with 2001 the pretty images had context, instead of just randomly cutting to dinosaurs for twenty minutes for no reason.
Like I said, this is a love or hate film, if you love the film, good for you, but I found the movie to be pretencious and boring. Like I said, it may be worth seeing at least once for the cinemotography, but if you have ADD, you will not make it through this film.
