À la merveille

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.

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.

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.

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.