The Tree of Life (2011): The story centers around a family with three boys in the 1950s. The eldest son witnesses the loss of innocence. (7.2)
Director: Terrence Malick
Writer: Terrence Malick
Stars: Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain
Um, there's no story in this movie. The cinematography is good; some of the pictures and scenes have been borrowed from elsewhere. The title is all wrong; there's no tree of life here. This is just the author trying to inject his pesky god into the nature. Look, all of the piddly little religions with creationist gods have described silly little stories in their religions but they don't stand up to today's science. This movie is just an attempt to inject something (dinosaurs, asteroids hitting the earth, galaxies, etc.) back into some religious story that some man keeps asking where you were. This makes absolutely no sense. If the director/writer wanted to make a movie about how the universe is elegant AND meaningful AND follows nice patterns etc, just make something about the works of today's physicist like Stephen Hawking or Brian Greene or the evolutionary biologist or something. There's no reason to try to mash up dinosaurs with a 50s Texas family and soap bubbles. His attempt reminds me of this quote from Arthur C. Clarke: "The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion." I'd give this 4.5 if it weren't for the beautiful pictures. My Rating: 6.0
