'The Tree Of Life' A Review

There isn't a plot to speak of with his movie. The movie starts with Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain dealing with the death of one of their three boys. What follows is a long sequence with everything from space to cells to dinosaurs. An attempt I think to make a sketch of the entire history of the world. Woof. For most of the remainder of the movie we follow a slice of life of Pitt's family presumably during one summer in his three boys childhood. There are brief flashes forward to current day with Sean Penn playing one of the boys all grown up.

I had a lot of problems with this movie chief of which was that it took itself way to seriously. So serious in fact it's difficult to take any pleasure in watching it. The score is loudly dramatic and ever present. There is non sequitur voice over throughout the picture that adds nothing but distracts much. I found myself asking myself multiple times "why am I watching this? what is this suppose to mean?" It has a striking resemblance to the pretension of "The Fountain."

There isn't an actual scene with extended dialogue till 2/3 of the way through the epic 140 minutes. I guess you could say it was well acted but the acting in an of it self is so torturous you don't really want to watch it. I guess Brad Pitt has a good performance but the father he plays is overbearing and unlikable. A person that, if he existed now, could be reported to DCFS. The voice over and score make every simple familial interaction an existential crisis. It reminded me of some of the worst plays I've seen at the Steppenwolf Theater.

Superbly acted but so pretentiously heavy you don't even want to watch.

Skip it.