Director: Terrence Malick
Writer: Terrence Malick
Starring: Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Sean Penn
Release Date: June 17, 2011
Length: 2 hours 20 minutes
Visionary director Terrence Malick of films The New World and Days Of Heaven is one that many describe as an acquired taste. His off-the-wall films can either be perceived as innovative or nonsensical. Such is the case with his latest project The Tree Of Life, starring Brad Pitt and rising star Jessica Chastain. Even the title gives off a pretentious air about it, without knowing at all what it is. When it comes down to it, it’s hard to describe just what this film is about. It focuses on the creation of the universe, the start of life on earth and family but what The Tree Of Life is really about is what the title infers; the growth of life in every possible way. That may seem ridiculous, but it is completely true and understandable after experiencing the film. The center point of the film is a middle-aged man named Jack O’Brien (Sean Penn) who recalls memories of childhood in 1950s Texas. We go to the beginning of his parent’s relationship and the growth of the O’Brien family with Jack, and his two younger brothers, R.L. and Steve. Jack slowly grows to an age of 11, where the most of the film then takes place. He shows us the friendships he has with his brothers and neighbours in their small community, his hate for what we believe is a very unstable father (Pitt), and his love for his beautiful helpless mother (Chastain). We go back and forth between past and present, while countless shots of the Big Bang and space, evolution, and life are shown to us to put together the theme of the film. The Tree Of Life was the winner of this year’s Cannes Film Festival’s grand prize the Palme d’Or proving to many people to be one of the best films of 2011, while proving to others to be one of the worst. As someone who usually does not get or care for extremely bizarre films, I was surprised to find that I was one of the people rooting for it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t suffer though. Knowing this was quite a lengthy film, I felt I was in for a painful experience at the beginning of the film when most of those endless Cosmo shots took place. I may have nodded off without knowing during those 15 minutes and I wondered are the actors just there for a few shots of people, but the important part is that right after that, the plot picked up and my worries disappeared. Malick creates a very slow moving film in a groundbreaking way in that you surprisingly develop a patience you never knew you had within you for The Tree Of Life. It literally feels like you are going through a real family’s day-to-day life but with tremendous power and emotion that is so simple. Watching the family grow from day one is why you have that patience and why you feel like you know the children and Jack so well. It almost feels like you’re not watching a film at all, but being a bystander to a quietly very complicated family. The script is so well crafted to slowly pull you into their family, that by the time you are completely invested in everything the characters do, you’ve forgotten if you’ve ever doubted this movie. For me, the family was my core, my understanding of the film. So when we saw shots of Sean Penn when Jack is older or Space or anything else, I slowly felt myself coming back to reality and pulled out of a deep dream. The few shots of Sean Penn that were there were in fact very important to the story and reminded you that we were watching his memories. As much as I was infatuated with the 1950s O’Brien family, the older Jack added balance. Everything about Malick’s story is just perfect. The way the family acts around their manic father, the way Mrs. O’Brien is so loving to her boys and the way the boys sometimes playfully and sometimes malevolently act towards each other all hits you beautifully. To bring Malick’s peculiarity to life was an all around phenomenal cast. Brad Pitt pushes his boundaries as what seems like a possibly bi-polar father. Sometimes he is cold and strict and yet sometimes he acts very needy and possessive, asking his children - who he usually scares and intimidates away - if they love him. This might possibly be Pitt’s best performance because not only does he play an unlikable character for the first time, but an extremely intriguing one. No one thinks of Brad Pitt when they think of a hard working, psychologically abusive father of three boys, in the 1950s, but he rises right up to the complexity of the character and gives by far, one of this year’s best performances. His is accompanied by a much younger actress that is right in his caliber of acting, Jessica Chastain. There aren’t words to describe Chastain’s unbelievable performance in The Tree Of Life. She makes us almost immediately empathize for her position as such a loving but unfortunately powerless mother when it comes to her husband. She, by no means though, acts pitiful. She plays a strong young woman who is unfortunately under circumstances of wanting to protect her children without getting herself hurt. Sometimes when I see an extraordinary performance from a newcomer in an independent movie, I hope they aren’t forgotten after it. I have nothing to worry about with Chastain though. She looks to be in almost every movie about to come out including two more this summer, The Help and The Debt. In September, she’ll star as the main character in Al Pacino’s Wild Salome and after that play Ralph Fiennes wife in his directorial debut, Coriolanus. I’m mad this promising actress didn’t appear earlier in Hollywood. However, the real star of the film and the one who spoke to the audience the most was Hunter McCracken as the younger version of Jack. As the carrier of the film, he entrances us into the story from his distressingly confused perspective. McCracken amazingly makes us feel and experience everything he sees, hears and touches so subtly. He is exceptional as a boy who can’t understand how he feels toward his strange father. This is when I really can say I hope this young actor is not forgotten after this film and he continues to perform as greatly as he did in The Tree Of Life in future films. The young perspective is what makes the film so melancholy and bittersweet sometimes. Although I personally did not enjoy the length of the shots of the universe, they were absolutely beautiful as were all the artistic visual effects in the film done by no other than special effects supervisor of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Douglass Trumbell. Trumbell astonishingly did not use any CGI for the Cosmo shots but it doesn’t matter how he did it because they looked breathtakingly real. Unfortunately, Malick used much too many of those shots for my liking but quickly made up for it. Its easy to say that The Tree Of Life left an incredible effect on me that no other film has. This is the best film of 2011, so far and one of the most powerful films of all time.
Writer: Terrence Malick
Starring: Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Sean Penn
Release Date: June 17, 2011
Length: 2 hours 20 minutes
Visionary director Terrence Malick of films The New World and Days Of Heaven is one that many describe as an acquired taste. His off-the-wall films can either be perceived as innovative or nonsensical. Such is the case with his latest project The Tree Of Life, starring Brad Pitt and rising star Jessica Chastain. Even the title gives off a pretentious air about it, without knowing at all what it is. When it comes down to it, it’s hard to describe just what this film is about. It focuses on the creation of the universe, the start of life on earth and family but what The Tree Of Life is really about is what the title infers; the growth of life in every possible way. That may seem ridiculous, but it is completely true and understandable after experiencing the film. The center point of the film is a middle-aged man named Jack O’Brien (Sean Penn) who recalls memories of childhood in 1950s Texas. We go to the beginning of his parent’s relationship and the growth of the O’Brien family with Jack, and his two younger brothers, R.L. and Steve. Jack slowly grows to an age of 11, where the most of the film then takes place. He shows us the friendships he has with his brothers and neighbours in their small community, his hate for what we believe is a very unstable father (Pitt), and his love for his beautiful helpless mother (Chastain). We go back and forth between past and present, while countless shots of the Big Bang and space, evolution, and life are shown to us to put together the theme of the film. The Tree Of Life was the winner of this year’s Cannes Film Festival’s grand prize the Palme d’Or proving to many people to be one of the best films of 2011, while proving to others to be one of the worst. As someone who usually does not get or care for extremely bizarre films, I was surprised to find that I was one of the people rooting for it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t suffer though. Knowing this was quite a lengthy film, I felt I was in for a painful experience at the beginning of the film when most of those endless Cosmo shots took place. I may have nodded off without knowing during those 15 minutes and I wondered are the actors just there for a few shots of people, but the important part is that right after that, the plot picked up and my worries disappeared. Malick creates a very slow moving film in a groundbreaking way in that you surprisingly develop a patience you never knew you had within you for The Tree Of Life. It literally feels like you are going through a real family’s day-to-day life but with tremendous power and emotion that is so simple. Watching the family grow from day one is why you have that patience and why you feel like you know the children and Jack so well. It almost feels like you’re not watching a film at all, but being a bystander to a quietly very complicated family. The script is so well crafted to slowly pull you into their family, that by the time you are completely invested in everything the characters do, you’ve forgotten if you’ve ever doubted this movie. For me, the family was my core, my understanding of the film. So when we saw shots of Sean Penn when Jack is older or Space or anything else, I slowly felt myself coming back to reality and pulled out of a deep dream. The few shots of Sean Penn that were there were in fact very important to the story and reminded you that we were watching his memories. As much as I was infatuated with the 1950s O’Brien family, the older Jack added balance. Everything about Malick’s story is just perfect. The way the family acts around their manic father, the way Mrs. O’Brien is so loving to her boys and the way the boys sometimes playfully and sometimes malevolently act towards each other all hits you beautifully. To bring Malick’s peculiarity to life was an all around phenomenal cast. Brad Pitt pushes his boundaries as what seems like a possibly bi-polar father. Sometimes he is cold and strict and yet sometimes he acts very needy and possessive, asking his children - who he usually scares and intimidates away - if they love him. This might possibly be Pitt’s best performance because not only does he play an unlikable character for the first time, but an extremely intriguing one. No one thinks of Brad Pitt when they think of a hard working, psychologically abusive father of three boys, in the 1950s, but he rises right up to the complexity of the character and gives by far, one of this year’s best performances. His is accompanied by a much younger actress that is right in his caliber of acting, Jessica Chastain. There aren’t words to describe Chastain’s unbelievable performance in The Tree Of Life. She makes us almost immediately empathize for her position as such a loving but unfortunately powerless mother when it comes to her husband. She, by no means though, acts pitiful. She plays a strong young woman who is unfortunately under circumstances of wanting to protect her children without getting herself hurt. Sometimes when I see an extraordinary performance from a newcomer in an independent movie, I hope they aren’t forgotten after it. I have nothing to worry about with Chastain though. She looks to be in almost every movie about to come out including two more this summer, The Help and The Debt. In September, she’ll star as the main character in Al Pacino’s Wild Salome and after that play Ralph Fiennes wife in his directorial debut, Coriolanus. I’m mad this promising actress didn’t appear earlier in Hollywood. However, the real star of the film and the one who spoke to the audience the most was Hunter McCracken as the younger version of Jack. As the carrier of the film, he entrances us into the story from his distressingly confused perspective. McCracken amazingly makes us feel and experience everything he sees, hears and touches so subtly. He is exceptional as a boy who can’t understand how he feels toward his strange father. This is when I really can say I hope this young actor is not forgotten after this film and he continues to perform as greatly as he did in The Tree Of Life in future films. The young perspective is what makes the film so melancholy and bittersweet sometimes. Although I personally did not enjoy the length of the shots of the universe, they were absolutely beautiful as were all the artistic visual effects in the film done by no other than special effects supervisor of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Douglass Trumbell. Trumbell astonishingly did not use any CGI for the Cosmo shots but it doesn’t matter how he did it because they looked breathtakingly real. Unfortunately, Malick used much too many of those shots for my liking but quickly made up for it. Its easy to say that The Tree Of Life left an incredible effect on me that no other film has. This is the best film of 2011, so far and one of the most powerful films of all time.
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