Tree of Life

This 2011 Terrence Malick film was very polarizing. When the movie debuted at the Cannes Film Festival it received loud cheers and loud boos at the same time. That in a sentence sums up a Terrence Malick movie.

This movie starred Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain as a young couple in Texas in the early nineteen sixties. As their family grows we meet Jack and RL their first two sons and the movie centers mostly on Jack, his adolescence, and his growing anger at his father.

The movie begins with a long sequence which most have taken as Malick's history of the universe. We see the Big Bang, we see life on earth develop and then from space we see some kind of asteroid hitting the Earth.

Soon enough we meet the O'Brien's, first names never mentioned. Their young family is growing and they like any young couple are captivated their small children. Mr O Brien, played effectively by Brad Pitt is an engineer. As the boys grow he does his best to be a good father, he is frustrated with his choices, never having pursued his love of music, and feeling beaten down by his job. To soothe his ego he files patents for inventions.

As the boys grow up Jack, his oldest, begins to have anger and frustration with his father, feeling him to be a bully, a man who dominates him in a way he does not appreciate. This seems to be beyond the normal frustration of the normal father-son relationship.

The movie is told in more of a vignette than a time lined story. Much of what we see is as if we were looking in the window and the scenes change rapidly. Jessica Chastain as Mrs O' Bren is wonderful. She is one of those actresses that in watching her you feel like you know her, or have seen her in many movies prior, she is very much able to present in a way you connect with. In this family Mrs O' Brien is a spiritual person, she is the nurturer to the boys and tries to be the balance of her husband. At one point in the movie, Mr. O'Brien goes on a long business trip and the family dynamic changes. What begins as lightheartedness and fun becomes a time of rebellion. Young Jack starts to get in trouble and does some things for which he feels terribly guilty.

At times in the movie we see an adult Jack working in an office building. Sean Penn plays the older Jack as he has a phone conversation with his father which centers on an argument about the death of his little brother, the middle son, RL, who died in Vietnam.

Eventually the family leaves Texas as Mr O' Brien gets a transfer. He and Jack have a talk which is semi re-conciliatory. Mr O' Brien wants Jack to make better decisions, to pursue his passion, and he also worries about if he is a good enough person. Doubting yourself seems to be present even in this man who is a pretty solid version of what the mid 20th century Father was supposed to be.

As the movie ends older Jack has a vision where he meets his Dead brother on a beach, and feels his Mother, at the age she was when he was young, reconciling the loss of her son to her God.

The movie was visually strong, with interesting scenes. The alienation between father and son is pretty typical and the story shows scenes from a suburban childhood many can identify with.

The dream scenes and life creation scenes are interesting but do not really do much to advance the story. For me this film seems to lack a chromosome that binds it all together. It is like watching a sequence of short films, some work together to bring a conclusion and some do not.

Still it is a brave film, ambitious if nothing else.