I saw this tonight. I thought it was too long. The cinematography was great, lots of classical music, however the family 'plot' had more questions than answers. people will hate the ending.
Just got back from seeing this one tonight. I thought it was a great film, although flawed, it was good. Very, very artsy. Don't walk in and expect any answers to be handed to you. I kind of feel that if you're able to relate to some of the family story line, it will mean a lot more to you. Sean Penn barely speaks on-camera in the film, but Brad Pitt does a fantastic job. Beautifully filmed and bigger in scope than almost anything you've likely seen before.
I'm somewhere between tinman and dumbartonbass. For a Mallick film, I found this one disappointing. Yes, there are some incredibly beautiful moments, visually, and even one or two great human moments, but for me the pieces just didn't fit together very well. Before I start with spoiler-tag material, let's just say I think Mallick was too narrative for the subject matter. I guess I felt I could follow the story pretty clearly and it would have been more mysterious and magical if he had jumbled it up a bit. Maybe if the story itself was grander, but it's kind of ho hum when you get down to it. The following will be written carefully not to "spoil" anything really, but if you want a fully blank slate going in, do NOT read them. Spoiler If you've read any of the reviews you know there is a big cosmic scale to this movie, and a small-town Texas scale. For the life of me, there was just no convincing connection. I loved the big stuff and the visual effects are some of the best I have ever seen, anywhere in any context. Then the Texas story of a family... great acting... convincing... but ultimately just a family drama in small-town Texas. I think there were two big options for him to hit a home run 1. Cut the beautiful cosmic stuff and just do the people story. Include more detail. Some key lines in the movie are mumbled and you really can't hear them. Make those audible. etc, etc. 2. Keep the beautiful cosmic stuff but jumble it up. Fracture the narrative. The family drama is pretty easy to follow, and it's nothing new. Just give us vignettes of their lives, maybe even without audible words. Mix these into the cosmic scale. Then it becomes uber-arty but grand and gorgeous. The worst of the human part is the Sean Penn part, no fault of his. It's no secret that he plays the grown man version of one of the boys in small-town Texas. But him looking haunted, even destroyed, by a childhood that, sorry, was just not that bad... is weak on film. Just, get me to the next scene already. Sean Penn is sad and pensive in an elevator -- OKAY ALREADY. I know there are big things for him to be sad about, but it still doesn't work. I did love some of the philosophy. As you can see in the trailer, there's this notion of the "way of grace" as opposed to the "way of nature," and that's done really well I think. As a specific (and again, you can see this in the trailer, so its not much of a spoiler), there are the absolute best filmed scenes of the life of a toddler ever. They are phenomenal and I don't know how Mallick did it. You for a brief time, as a viewer, understand that time of life again. Amazing. And as tinman says, yea, the ending is kind of disappointing. There were lots of tears in the theater, and I choked up, but it didn't feel earned, if you know what I mean. It was like AT&T commercial kind of emotion, tugging existing strings, not building new strings with interesting well-told characters.
This is the best film I've seen this year and even last year. Beautiful. It's the type of film George Lucas wanted to make way back in the day. A purely visual emotional story. This is not for the Transformer "just want to be entertained" Joe popcorns. Just as Borges is not for the romance novel types. Weather you like this film or not depends on how you feel about art. It's ambiguous and asks more questions than gives answers. There's hardly any dialogue and nothing resembling a traditional plot. It's just episodes of a man remembering his childhood during one summer in 1950's Texas. Everyone who cares about cinema should make it there duty to see this film. You don't believe me? Chris Nolan and David Fincher seem to agree with me. <iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UVUXDn6hCY4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I would suggest that you make the effort to see it on the big screen. The cosmic portions of the storyline will undoubtedly look better there than at home and true art like this - an effort of the filmmaker to probe at eternal questions and not pander to a large audience - deserves to be reward at the box office.
Nice review B-Bob. I guess my main issue is kind of like you I didn't really get the connection between the cosmic and human elements of the movie. Maybe someone can help shed some light on what Mallick was trying to do here? I think my favorite sections of the movie are when the camera just follows the kid(s) around observing their childhood, particularly their younger years. Felt so real and familiar.
This movie was absolute garbage. I am not the "I only watch action movies and comedies" type. I go watch limited release, critically acclaimed movies and enjoy a good deal of them. But this, this was utter crap. It is by far the most self indulgent movie ever made. Malick is so in love with his own perceived genius, he does not care what the audience thinks. I swear the people who sit back and call this "true art" just don't want people to think they are dumb so they pretend to get it. The "plot" and concepts are simplistic at best. Malick tries to make you think he has come up with some profound ideas/thoughts by showing supposedly visually stunning images. I saw this in Phoenix and literally without exaggeration 50 people walked out. Of those that stayed all you heard when people left the theater was talk of how awful it was. I liked a Thin Red Line, but I will NEVER patronize another Malick movie. This was absolutely the worst movie ever made - it knocked the Diving Bell and the Butterfly down to #2. But then again, I hate movies made by people who are enamored by themselves.
Reading both SpiffyRifi and Pericle's reviews really want to make me see this movie. Mallick's movies are often like Rorshach tests were you read into them rather than being given a clear cut message or experience.
Saw it. I thought it was too personal (Terry Malick) a piece for me to fully appreciate it. The story is heavily influence by the director's personal life experience, and although I found it interesting, I thought the theme of the film was too broad (life) for the story about a family in Waco. This is purely my opinion though, I did enjoy it but was expecting a bit more. Visually, it was the prettiest looking film I've seen in a long long time. It was shot by one of my favorite cinematographers, Emmanuel "El Chivo" Lubezki, a fellow Mexican. I just love his stuff. Anyway, this is not really a commercial film (even though it has big names like Pitt, Penn, etc), this is more for people that enjoy films like 2001 Space Odyssey, Solaris by Tarkvoski, etc.
