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Tree of Life is the fifth feature for the legendary director Terrence Malick whose career is now into its fourth decade. His latest won over the prize committee at Cannes winning the prestigious Palme D'or but it is bound to divide the general audience.

Malick does not leave it up to the audience to figure out the meaning of this film revealing it in the opening minutes of the film. It is in the trailer as well. Tree of Life is an allegory on existence. Malick explores the notion that everyone faces the choice between nature and grace as a path through life. Struggle or compromise. Cunning or tolerance.

Tree of Life centers around the O'Brian family in Waco, Texas in the 1950s. The parents represent the principal theme of the film. The father played by an increasingly impressive Brad Pitt is a failed musician who runs a disciplined household and teaches his children that you just cannot be too good in this world. The mother who is played by Jessica Chastain has a graceful, almost childlike simplicity that the father considers naive.

The couple have three boys, the oldest Jack is played by an impressive Hunter McCracken as a 11-year-old and Sean Penn in adulthood. The boys become torn between their loving mother and assertive father. Hence, nature versus grace. Tree of Life consists of what appears to be random childhood memories from Jack meant to ponder the meaning of existence. These scenes have an engaging subtlety that is the great strength of the film.

The scenes that are bound to polarize the audience occur outside the O'Brian family home. Malick breaks from the family scenes on several occasions. We see what appears to be a recreation of the origin of the universe, numerous sea life and even dinosaurs. (Yes, dinosaurs). Malick presumably meant this to further the discussion on the existence of life on earth, as well as the role of God within it.

The problem with the Tree of Life is that these scenes do not successfully tie together well with the family scenes or the central theme of the film. For example, the scenes with Jack in adulthood consist nothing but Sean Penn looking gloomy as he goes up the elevator of a tall Dallas skyscraper. It just does not complement the scenes of him in childhood very much.

Malick deserves a lot of credit for trying to change the structure of filmmaking in a Hollywood increasingly running out of ideas. Perhaps in a decade Tree of Life will be considered ahead of its time. But for now it is bound to catch many people off guard particularly the opening thirty minutes. At least a half dozen people walked out of the theatre in the opening half hour.

Despite this, Tree of Life is worth your time mainly because of the scenes of family life in the 1950s as the family experiences conflict, death and the loss of innocence.

Woody Allen's latest film might be his most entertaining and rewarding ever. Midnight in Paris is hardly new material for Allen. Many people have long accused him of recycling old ideas. At the same time, Allen's newest creation touches on familiar ground but still seems refreshing all the same.

Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is a successful Hollywood screenwriter spending some free time with his fiancée Inez (Rachal McAdams) in the French capital. They too are a classic mismatched couple familiar to Allen fans. Gil an aspiring novelist hopes the inspiration of Paris will help him complete his first novel. Inez on the other hand is content spending time shopping and dancing with a 'pedantic' old flame named Paul played by Michael Sheen.

Gil believes that he is wasting his talent at screen writing and dreams up a story revolving around a nostalgic shop. He is particularly fascinated with Paris in the 1920s when it was home to many great artists, poets, writers and even filmmakers of that time. Michael Sheen's character Paul refers to it as 'golden age thinking,' that your personality is best suited in a specific time frame of the past.

The film explores the idea that many people think that their lives would be easier or more fruitful if they had been born at another time. But in reality the people of any so called golden age likely long for a different time frame. It is mostly found in people with a deep intellectual curiosity. Perhaps the idea is erroneous like Paul says. But Woody Allen's film seems to say,'So what?' Perhaps it is not the allure of Paris in the 1920s that is so engrossing Allen. Perhaps it is the bleak pessimism of the present that is so troubling to Allen. Gil's materialistic fiancée, her right wing Republican parents and the pretentious pseudo-intellectual played by Martin Sheen are clearly archetypes of people in his own time.

Midnight in Paris is typical of many Allen films. There are bad romances. There are true romances that could never be fulfilled. This film is not as multi-layered as Annie Hall and Manhattan, widely held to be his best work. But you will not care.

You will not really care to know why exactly he is picked up at the same corner of Paris by a classic Peugeot every night at midnight either. Midnight in Paris might just be the most entertaining Allen film ever. It is as mesmerizing and full of charm as the people he meets in his adventures.

Tamara Drewe is a real gem by The Queen director Stephen Frears. It is an updated version of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd but based on a graphic novel by Posy Simmonds. A dark comedy set in the English countryside, the story is centred on a writer's colony run by Tamsin Greig's character Beth and her crime writer husband Nicholas, played by Roger Allam.

Gemma Arteton plays the title character who lived in the same small down in Dorset known as Ewedown during her teenage years. Now grown up she returns to restore and hopefully sell the house she used to live in. With help from a surgically reconstructed nose, Tamara Drewe has blossomed into a beautiful woman and her presence shakes the sleepy town as Bethsheba did in Hardy's novel.

The film is true to the memory of Thomas Hardy maintaining the turmoil of sexual desire and even obsession across all age groups which so commonly adorned his novels. One of the characters, the sympathetic American novelist Glen played by Bill Camp is writing a novel influenced by Hardy and references the author on many occasions.

The film breaks the notion of a quiet and sleepy town, like so many British films do. Underneath these seemingly close communities lies an underlining suspicion. Everyone is in everyone else's business in Ewedown and Tamara's presence only helps fuel the tension.

The pivotal scene that embodies Tamara Drewe's character occurs when Glen tells her that life must be very easy for her because she is beautiful. She laughs it off citing that it has always been difficult for her to be taken seriously.

Behind the character of Tamara Drewe lies something more sinister. The sudden appearance of a beautiful face in the town leads to a series of events that causes the balance of everyone's life to be upset. Men are suddenly smitten by the prospect of sex while women are often jealous or angry by the disruption they cause.

The story really begins to escalate when Tamara begins to date a drummer in a rock band played by Dominic Cooper and sets up permanently in the town. Soon, everyone in the town is invested in the lives of these people in some way.

The voyeurism of the locals who regard Tamara Drewe as both someone to envy and detest is likened to the celebrity status of her rock star boyfriend. Tamara quickly becomes the target of two schoolgirls who are both obsessed with the drummer and jealous of Tamara for disturbing the order of things.

The film eases its dark themes with its excellent use of subtle humour. The updated version of one of Hardy's most celebrated novels exposes the reality of a voyeuristic society too concerned with the lives of other people.

Along with Frears excellent direction, the other great strength of this film is its actors with special distinction going to Tamsin Greig. Greig is familiar to the London stage scene while others have played minor roles in big films. Gemma Arteton was one of Bond's muses in the Quantum of Solace. Roger Allam has been equally excellent in Frears academy award winning film the Queen as well as in V for Vendetta.

On one final note, I read one review that argued that the climax just does not amount to much which I personally felt was very misguided. The ending was true to the traditions of Hardy which is what Tamara Drewe is all about.