To the Wonder

Malick is one of my favorite directors ever. He's made three masterpieces, one excellent film, and one merely solid one. The Tree of Life is his finest achievement, one of my five favorite films ever. Now here comes To The Wonder and it's like Tree of Life's very similar, but much more emotionally-undeveloped younger cousin that wants to be as mature and as serious as it's older relative. That's the problem, but it's also part of its appeal. I did not have high expectations for this, but I also didn't really think it would hit greatness. I was sort of right. By this point it's safe to say that you're either fond of Malick's general style or not. Obviously I am and so there's nothing here that's challenging for me as a viewer because I know what to expect. But even with his former weakest, The New World, there was still something unique to each of his five films. This is To The Wonder's biggest problem. The cinematography is beautiful and would blow your mind away if this was your first Malick film, but as it is, it's kinda predictable. The story at the core is also never fully brought to life in the way the story in his last one was, although Kurylenko and McAdams both bring some truly ethereal presence.

It sounds like I didn't even like it. I did, but I also think it started off pretty great and kinda lost itself and got weaker as it went on. And while there's still a lot to admire, I'm not surprised by the criticisms and it's finally the film where the term "Malick cliché" can be applied to.

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.

Terrence malick, director behind last years most discussed picture, 'The Tree of Life', has snuck his new film 'to the wonder' into the venice film festival. I came here to see The Master, but was also interested in Malicks new film. i was hesitant to get excited for it though. Malick is widely regarded as a control freak as a director, meditating for years, and releasing his films incredibly infrequently. i felt that it was way too early between drinks for malick to release another work. after such a personal film like TTOF, i thought this might be more of a minor work, like how the Coen brothers did No Country and followed up with the minimalistic screw-ball comedy 'burn after reading'. How unprepared and wrong i was.

To The Wonder is a magnificent film. The tree of life was a towering achievement IMHO, and this film doesn't fall short by much in terms of scope, ambition and achievement. by any standards its a great film. its a strong addition to malick's small yet vital body of work. The acting is very good, but like TTOF, takes a a bit of a back seat for malick to do his thing. Affleck and McAdams a very good, as are bardem and kurylenko. i don't want to give away to many plot specifics or character details. most of that is in the lengthy plot synopsis released online yesterday anyway. it is very dream-like, and has a lack of dialogue like TTOF. it tells most of its story through imagery, music and how characters physically act towards each other. i never liked affleck as an actor before this. he's good here, but i wouldn't have minded someone else in the role.

About what affleck said yesterday. that to the wonder makes TTOF look like transformers. that statement is so exaggerated and pretty much wrong. if anything, TTOF is still more experimental than TO THE WONDER. that doesn't detract from the huge ambition of this film though. I'm so excited to see malick working quicker now. it really is a dream to have malick films in 3 successive years. next year is knight of cups. couldn't be more excited. like TTOF, this film will richly reward repeat viewing, but is a little more accessible than TTOF. people who had problems with the whole universe and dinosaurs thing in TTOF wont have to worry here. although ambitious, it is a little more grounded, and will be more palatable to a bigger audience. thats not to say that the mainstream will embrace this film, because they wont. its a malick film through and through, and i couldn't be more grateful for that.

Before i saw this, the race for my favourite film of the year had really boiled down to THE MASTER (which was great, but still processing) and BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD. Malick's film has opened up the field. 5/5

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.

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.