Review of The Tree of Life (2011) by Txrangersfan72 — 18 Jun 2011

Not a movie for most, The Tree of Life is an over-dramatic representation of what seems like a personal, spiritual struggle waged by the writer/director, Terry Malick, himself. If you can get through the first 30 minutes, you may be able to appreciate the entirely-too-dramatic message being delivered. Brad Pitt is as good as I've ever seen him as the father of Jack and his two siblings. Jack, played as an adult by Sean Penn (in a very tiny role for him), is the protagonist (and I believe a representation of the writer/director) and is enduring the lessons and loss every boy, not to mention person, goes through over the course of their lives and trying to make sense of the meaning of life.

The film, like Jack himself, starts off very pessimistic in his beliefs, highlighting the inconsequential meaning and apathetic brutality of nature. It's a very Agnostic, if not Atheist, view. However, it ends with a strong shot of the adult Jack slowly dropping to his knees and succumbing to the complexity and reality of life, praying to some "God" to watch out for us all...until the end of time.

The meat of the story is young Jack learning boyhood lessons, which were almost painful in their accuracy to watch. I found myself squirming from very vivid memories of my own childhood thoughts that mirrored Jack's own a little too similarly. It was this immensely detailed and deep understanding of a growing boy, as well as the deeply emotional and over-dramatic display throughout the movie, that makes me believe this is a personal film for the writer. For people who generally hate these types of films, I would highly dissuade you from watching it. In fact, several people screening the film before me came out demanding refunds and urging people to change films. When I saw it, people clapped and laughed at the end, and not for good reasons. They were glad to see it done and happy to be leaving.

It is definitely a niche film and would only be appreciated by that niche. The style is typical of Terry Malick's, from what I understand, but for Father's Day and already being in a deep funk and contemplative due to the recent cancer struggle of my friend, Wes, it was a very hard film to watch. I came out appreciating it much more than I did while I was watching it. As much as the beginning had me thinking it was a strong liberal, almost anti-religion, agenda, which was coming across as irritating, even though I can appreciate the guts that would have taken, I left thinking anything but and was impressed by its roundabout message of love and spirituality. It's worth seeing once if you have an open mind and 2:18 of patience to let a movie make its point, but as much as I can appreciate it, it took a lot out of me to watch it. I believe I can only do it once.