Amor Pleno

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

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.

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.

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.