Movie Review: The Tree Of Life (Film Number 44 In My Goal For 2011 Films)

Where to begin with The Tree Of Life? It took me two days to even think about writing a review for it. Not because I enjoyed it, because I was too pissed at this film to even state my opinion on it. I figured I wouldn't like The Tree Of Life, but I figured since I'm pretty open-minded and with the heaps of praise it had been given, I would give a shot. I instantly regretted that decision. It was 1000x worse than I expected it to be. I can't even remember the last time a movie made me this angry. For months, I've heard about how "challenging" and "thought-provoking" this film was. The only thing "challenging" about The Tree Of Life was staying awake through the whole thing. There is absolutely no coherence to it. It's just a 2-hour string of Terrence Malick using nature shots (some times with voiceovers!), quick-cut editing, random examples of Brad Pitt's character being an asshole to his kids, and whispering dialogue that tries to convey "the true importance of life". If this is Malick's vision of the true meaning/importance of life, I don't know what fucking planet he lives on. He needs to maybe stop putting LSD in his breakfast and try to write a movie that makes sense and not just a series of shots that will please only the snobbiest arthouse crowd and no one else. Saying this film is pretentious would be understatement, this is full-on douche porn. It's so self-absorbed and beats you over the head with it's message, then pretends it's being subtle with it's blatantly obvious symbolism. The only thing missing were captions on the screen saying when you should be moved or be thinking "deeply" about the importance of life on earth . I know I am in the minority on this film, but I just loathed every minute of it. The acclaim on this is absolutely baffling to me. It almost seems like people are enjoying it just because they were told to. I know this is being dubbed as an experimental film. Well Terrence Malick, your experiment failed miserably. The Tree Of Life is a completely pointless, tedious, and sickeningly pretentious exercise that is amongst the worst films I've ever seen.

0/5 Stars