À la merveille

I am a huge Terrence Malick fan and have loved everything he has done, up until this. This is not a good film. It's drawn out, has a very uninteresting script, and just fails to entertain, stimulate, or do anything really.

It's a two hour wide angle shot of Ben Affleck being in a shitty relationship. Hmm...

That being said, the camera work is pretty great, as is the case with most of Malick's work, but that's pretty much it. There is almost no story to speak of, to even remember as I write this review. The French woman could have gone back home at any time and spared everyone the pain of their crappy relationship. Instead, she decides to draw out what everyone knows is a doomed scenario.

Malick should honestly have retired with the Tree of Life. It was excellent, and utilized the dreamy, wide-angle drawn out sequences very well, unlike here, where they are relied on to make up for a lack of substance.

I don't really recommend this film to anyone. If you are a Malick fan, it will severely diminish your appreciation for him, as it is as pretentious as it is boring.

This movie tries so hard to be beautiful, it hurts. I got a beauty overdose after 20 minutes. The cinematography is so gorgeous, it should be used to teach photography students, especially ultra-wide lens work. There is a lot of beautiful acting by insanely beautiful Olga Kurylenko and then some by beautiful Rachel McAdams, whose character is absolutely unnecessary, by the way. Not much more in terms of acting, though. Even the great Javier Bardem was acting Ben Affleck style - making serious faces and trying not to look stupid. Both extremely beautiful, of course. The score was quite beautiful, too. Other than all that beauty, there was nothing. No plot, no dialogues. Scattered pseudo-spiritual monologues in five languages did not help much, and reading meaningless subtitles distracted me from watching the aforementioned beauty. Bottom line: way too much beauty and zero content. Recommended to aspiring photographers and very patient Olga Kurylenko fans.

If you enjoy seeing a lot of twirling, this is a movie you don't want to miss. The two female leads twirl wherever they are, grocery shopping, walking anywhere, not just on the beach but in grocery stores on casual strolls; and they never get dizzy. These women are every man's dream, Rachael McAdams wears makeup: lipstick, mascara, eyeliner-the whole nine yards, while she's bailing hay. It's amazing. To add to the enjoyment, there's no real plot. At least one you haven't seen before, albeit without the twirling. Olga Kurylenkoand and Ben Afflack never age because, I guess, they walk on the beach a lot while twirling. But eventually, all that twirling gets to them and he gets bored with her and then she gets bored with him and a priest gets bored with god and finally, the viewer gets dizzy watching.

Greetings again from the darkness. Director Terrence Malick makes films that typically fall into the "love it or hate it" genre. He has a very loyal group of fans (of which I am one) who appreciate the unique mental and emotional ride that his projects provide. To say that his films are not accessible is understandable. His objective is to challenge you to access your own beliefs and thoughts, rather than the characters in his movies ... they are simply the tools he uses.

Less than two years ago, I was struggling to put thoughts into words after watching Malick's The Tree of Life. Now, in record time for him, he releases another film that is even more impressionistic ... actually abstract is not too strong a description. The usual Malick elements are present - nature, uncomfortable relationships, minimal dialogue, breathtaking photography, and powerful music. Where The Tree of Life focused on Creation and Family, this latest takes on Love and Faith.

Water imagery is a frequent key as we see the personal relationship mimic the changing of the seasons. Neil (Ben Affleck), an American visiting Paris, meets and falls for Marina (Olga Kurylenko), a free-spirited local filled with light and energy. Their love affair moves to the stunning Mont Saint-Michel before settling in the drab plains of Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

It's not surprising that the relationship suffers as the newness wears thin. The interesting part is how Malick presents it. We mostly witness bits and pieces ... he shows us moments, not events. We easily see that Neil's aloofness and sullen looks don't jibe with Marina's effervescence. When she returns to Paris, Neil easily falls in with an old flame played by Rachel McAdams. When she later accuses him of making what they had "nothing", we all understand what she means ... and why.

While Neil is proving what a lost soul he is, we also meet Father Quintana (Javier Bardem). He has lost the light of his faith and is in full crisis mode, even as he attempts to console and guide Marina. There is no secret that much of this film is autobiographical and that Malick is working through wounds he still carries these many years later. As a movie-goer, there is little to be gained from Alleck's disconnected character or from Kurylenko dancing in the rain. The real prize is awakening the thoughts and feelings many of us probably buried over the years to hide emotional pain. Malick seems to be saying that it's OK to acknowledge your foundation, regardless of your ability to succeed in a socially acceptable manner.

If you prefer not to dig so deep emotionally, this is a beautiful film to look at - thanks to Director of Photograpy Emmanuel Lubezki (a frequent Malick collaborator), and listen to - a blended soundtrack with many notable pieces from various composers. While this will be remembered as Roger Ebert's final movie review (he liked it very much), it will likely have very little appeal to the average movie watcher - and I'm confident that Terrence Malick is fine with that.

This is perhaps Terrence's only really bad movie and this is coming from his biggest fan. I usually love the camera work with the raspy philosophical voiceovers, but in this one it just felt empty, repetitive and generic. There were pretty evident themes of love, loss, faith and indecision, but it seems like they were never truly exploited. The first twenty minutes drew me in, they reminded me of The New World and Song to Song, but the movie just keeps going downhill after that. You get nothing out of this movie except pretty images, which is not enough to redeem it in the end. Skip this one if you can, especially if you don't really like Terrence's previous modern work.