Tree of Life - 2011

Geoff - 12/16/2012

Let me start by saying Tree of Life is a visually beautiful movie. Well shot with dramatic sequences of plants growing, animals dying, and even a dinosaur or two. The problem is; that's the whole movie. No plot, no sense, and very little dialogue. It's essentially a 3 hour screen saver. It looks to be a lot of stock footage with a bunch of whispered voice overs that may or may not be actual words.

TOL stars Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain... you'd think this would make for a decent cast to get something good on the screen. There are a couple of scenes where Penn mumbles to coworkers and talks on the phone, but it's mostly him wandering around looking lost. Mixed in with shots of Brad Pitt (his dad) letting him punch his hands and yelling at his mom about God knows what.

There are a lot of short choppy scenes which lead me to believe Terrence Malick has ADD and a giant ego. Maybe Malick had a bunch of stock video credits he had to use up before they expired or Perhaps he saw the cinematographer's demo reel and called the guy up.

TM   "Is this Emmanuel Lubezki?"
EL    "Yes"
TM   "I loved your demo reel and I want to work with you on a movie"
EL    "Great, what's the movie about?"
TM   "Nothing...I'm just bored. Maybe it's about EVERYTHING? I'm not sure, I'm too high to care. Actually, any way you can just make your reel two and a half hours long?"

Other reviewers of this movie think it's great cinema, and super artistic. They try to convince you that you're just not smart enough to understand it or it's over your head, because you're not savvy enough for its intricacies. That's shit, the movie is shit. Tree of Life is to cinema what Jackson Pollock is to painting; there is no better comparison.

If you think that is a great painting you'll probably love tree of life and you should also kill yourself.

If I had a time machine that could only be used once, I wouldn't used it to get rich or stop the Holocaust, I'd use it to keep myself from seeing this movie. In essence Tree of Life is Terrence Malick Jerking off for 139 minutes and I'm just not into that.

Rating - 1