“The Tree of Life,” Terrence Malick’s new movie, only his fifth in 38 years, won a lot of awards at the recent Cannes Film Festival. This makes sense because the French not only love Jerry Lewis, but they also spend a lot of cinema time navel-gazing.
Malick is doing some of that, too, and though it’s boring, it’s beautiful. In the early going, we spend a lot of time watching the beginning of the universe, some spectacular cinematography that kept me wishing to see it on the IMAX screen at the St. Louis Science Center. But it’s breath-taking even on a flat screen. What is not breath-taking is the Brad Pitt character, a bully and a child-and spouse-abuser. Malick handles those scenes in a manner so raw and brutal in made my gorge rise.
Jessica Chastain portrays Pitt’s wife, and Sean Penn their eldest son, Jack, but Malick’s long and lingering story lost me early on, and while I watched it, I did not enjoy it.
The Tree of Life opens today at the Tivoli
—Joe