Review of Knight of Cups (2015) by Cole M — 04 Mar 2016

While better than his last film "To the Wonder", Malick continues to give us cinematic poetry in images and visuals, but lacking any depth or narrative as far as story. There is little to no dialogue except for voice-overs from different actors. Mostly, there is a lot walking around aimlessly , observing, falling in and out of love, and disconnection and disillusionment with the world.

Christian Bale's Rick is a writer trying to find meaning in his life and asking existential questions. We don't know much about him other than his brother committed suicide and that he has a rocky relationship with his brother played by Wes Bentley (who used to be homeless) and his father played by Brian Dennehy (who didn't amount to success that Rick did). However, this relationship along with Rick's various relationships with various women (Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett and Teresa Palmer) all don't really amount to much. Malick gives us little insight into each character and any dialogue exchanges fade in and out without getting a clear understanding. Malick is more concerned with capturing beauty, people, and the world then his characters. So it becomes a meandering, directionless, and imprudent process. It's not to say that I don't like watching and considering the big, philosophical questions Malick wants us to ask or try to find something relatable within our own lives, but Malick seems, like his lead character, lost. Perhaps by pain of a bad review, a love he never got over, or something else, but he repeats himself time and time again with shots and structure or possibly following a formula would help him.

"Tree of Life" had moments where it too drifted towards being a confusing and dizzying mess, but somehow it redeemed itself for being visually spectacular. Story-wise it, too, felt out of the ordinary and needing structure, but Malick is not concerned with being like everyone else. I'm sure Malick fans will find "King of Cups" to be wonderful and hidden meaning to it, but me, like I said, while I was captivated by the visuals, it's another ham-fisted and often times boring movie that under a different director and editor, there might've been some conflict or purpose. Here, the tarot cards are not with Terence Malick.