The Tree of Life

2/4

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

Rated PG-13 for Some Thematic Material

On a solely aesthetic level, Terrence Malick’s new film “The Tree of Life” is a masterpiece.  Never before have I seen a movie that looked this good.  The images are gorgeous and as detailed as a movie at the St. Louis Omnimax.  That being said, there are other areas that impact a film’s final grade, like story, character and coherence, and that’s where the film falls short.

There’s really not much of a plot, so to speak.  It details the life of a young boy named Jack (Hunter McCracken) and his relationships with his mother, Mrs. O’Brien (Chastain) and father, Mr. O’Brien (Pitt).  The father is an aloof and domineering man, but he is also capable of love and kindness.  For a character with so little dialogue, he’s surprisingly well developed.  Mrs. O’Brien is more understanding, and she’s not against standing up to her husband when he goes too far.  Meanwhile, Jack is trying to figure out his place in his family, and the world.

The problem isn’t so much that there’s no plot or very little dialogue (the latter being something I can’t stand in a movie), but that there’s not enough material for a 2 ¼ hour long movie.  The film moves at a crawl; about a half an hour or more could have been left on the editing room floor without losing much.  The most extraneous material is the images of space and the journey through time.  Malick may have a point with these images, but he doesn’t convey it.  I thought it was a visual history through time, but the non-chronological order of these images dispels that theory.

The acting is strong, particularly for a film where the actors have so little to work with.  Brad Pitt gives his best performance ever as Mr. O’Brien.  Using primarily his face, Pitt creates a personality that is an individual we understand.  For such an aloof and conservative person, Pitt may seem like an odd choice, but the results speak for themselves.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Pitt is honored with an Oscar nomination (although the year is still young, and the Academy only has a two month memory span).  Relative newcomer Jessica Chastain also impresses, relying almost entirely on non-vocal communication.  She’s a beautiful person, and we can understand everything that she’s feeling.  As Jack, screen neophyte Hunter McCracken is terrific.  He gives a performance that most practiced thespians are incapable of giving.  He’s our window into the story, and he nails his performance beat for beat, and is more than capable of sharing the screen with the likes of Pitt.  For people who are tempted to see this movie because of Sean Penn’s name on the marquee, don’t bother.  Penn is only in the film for one or two minutes, and he has almost nothing to do.

Terrence Malick is one of the most private and celebrated directors working today, and it’s not hard to see why.  He knows what he’s doing with a camera, and I’m tempted to recommend this film based purely on its visual appeal.  There are also times when the film is compelling, but sadly there is an equal amount of time when it is almost deadly boring.  Malick experiments constantly.  Some of his ideas work (the small amount of dialogue and the reliance on non-vocal communication), others not so much (the metaphysical parts that bookend the film and magical realism that he includes at various points throughout).

Still, in the end, it’s just too long and too boring for me to recommend the film.