To the Wonder

This film is about a man's turbulent relationship with a French woman, complicated by a childhood sweetheart he re-acquaints.

"To The Wonder" is a slow moving film with somewhat a plot, but not one that I understand. It tells how Neil meets Marina in France, then they move to the States. Marina is unhappy there and moves back to France. Somehow Marina moves back to the States to rekindle the relationship. That's what I got from the film, but the scenes are too random to really understand what is happening. There is a scene of Marina attempting overdose, then the next scene shows Marina kissing Neil's feet. Now just what exactly is happening? Even Rachel McAdams, the queen of romantic films, could not save this randomness. Her saccharine persona is truncated by scenes of crop fields and animals grazing. Actually, those romantic scenes of them frolicking in the fields concentrates more on the crops and animals.

"To The Wonder" is surely more accessible than "The Tree of Life", but it is still not so accessible to the general public.

To the Wonder is a bold and artistically ambitious piece of filmmaking, which is more than can be said of most films, but it's ultimately a failure.

Malick's film is concerned with themes of love and religion. The director has clearly made a very personal film: he met his second wife in Paris, and the couple lived in Oklahoma before eventually separating.

To the Wonder is unusual in that it contains very little dialogue, which creates an almost dreamlike quality. None of the characters are properly developed, though, and the result is an emotionally unsatisfying experience. Ben Affleck is given little to do other than stare pensively into the distance. Olga Kurylenko spends most of the film twirling. Javier Bardem's Father Quintana feels detached from the rest of the story and Rachel McAdams has little more than an extended cameo.

Certainly the film's strong point is Emmanuel Lubezki's stunning cinematography. Even the biggest detractors of To the Wonder would have to concede that it's a beautiful film.

At its best, To the Wonder evokes the greatness of Malick's previous film, The Tree of Life - but that film had characters you could connect with, so it worked on an emotional level as well as an intellectual one. At its worst, To the Wonder is dull and repetitious. It ends up feeling like a parody of a Malick film, with its self-importance and constant waxing poetic. There's too much style and not enough substance.

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 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.

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.