The Tree of Life

Tree of Life (2011) is a film that has garnered polarizing reactions. Equally cheered and booed at the Cannes Film Festival, the film seems to have been getting similar response upon its American theatrical release. After a viewing, it’s easy to see why audiences align themselves with each camp. While the film offers up a lot to consider, viewers must pick through overt attempts at depicting the totality of the universe in order to find the small grains of brilliance peppered throughout.

Tree of Life is a film of magnificent proportions, and it makes that clear from the opening title. Beginning with a humbling quote from the book of Job about the creation of man, Malick attempts to probe the universe with big questions. He does this with equal parts metaphysical montage of world pre-consciousness and familial Texas drama about childhood, loss, and regret.

Disappointingly, the montages of the natural world fail to live up to their own lofty expectations. The whispered dialogue, dramatic classical music, and sweeping zooms of vast landscapes all culminate in being a touch overblown. These segments seem to be trying too hard, taking on too much, and failing while doing so. While these montages do contain stunning images and subtle, masterful camera movement, the contrived, self-aware attitude present throughout force them into the realm of the ridiculous and the unnecessary.

Malick seems to have overlooked the fact that he’s touched on universality with the smaller, quieter moments in the life of the Texas family. Tighter and more focused than the sweeping grandiosity of the previous segments; the trials and tribulations of the family play with an aura of quiet beauty. A boy listening to his father play the organ, the tense family dinner table, brothers experimenting with trust, and the green lawns of endlessly wide-angled Waco Texas -- these are the images and scenarios that occupy the world of the O’Brien family. The psyche of the eldest son, Jack, is carefully revealed as the film progresses, illuminating the negative effects of an overly patriarchal household and constantly weighing the influence of each parent. Malick has created something truly spectacular here: characters that are both archetypical and honestly believable. The universal questions asked and explored at the beginning of the film are asked and explored here – but with much more tact and subtlety. Aside from the occasional banal whispered voice-over explaining the events depicted, this section contains almost none of the pretention that plagued the first portion.

Unfortunately, Malick returns to his natural mysticism late in the film, as well as more heavily employing some unnecessary business with a middle-aged Jack (Sean Penn).  The final moments of the film find the characters interacting in a kind of spiritual reconciliatory version of the afterlife. Perhaps a fitting ending when the first portion is considered, it feels a bit flat and forced following the stunning drama of the O’Brien family.

For all its faults, there’s a lot of stunning beauty in The Tree of Life. Any person who grew up with a brother will be astonished by the honest accuracy of Jack and R.L.’s relationship. Pitt’s acting is superb and subtle, conveying a lot of emotion with little dialogue or explanation. Malick also lays to rest any myths about child actors, coaxing a fine performance out of all the children present in the film. The natural light of the cinematography is exquisite, depicting every moment with a certain soft beauty.

There are some fine things going on here, but the grandiose style dominant in much of the film simply doesn’t do it any favors There’s a stunning film wrapped up inside this theatrical edit, but parts have to be ignored for it to seem natural and fluid rather than forced. If nothing else, it’s a good thing that such a polarizing, non-linear narrative is getting such wide theatrical release. There’s enough truly great material in The Tree of Life to merit a viewing and a discussion, and the debate is sure to continue on for years to come. Perhaps time will reveal this to be Malick’s masterpiece, and I imagine that the film will age well. For now, though, the exhausting scope of the film’s ambition seems a bit much, and active extraction of brilliant moments is required of audiences everywhere.