It is a highly experimental family-dama telling the story of the 1950's American family - father (Brad Pitt,) mother (Jessica Chastain) and their three sons Jack (Hunter McCracken,) RL and Steve (Tye Sheridan.) However when RL dies, the family begins to fall apart with Steve and Mr O'Brien having a tumultuous relationship. In the modern-day, an adult Jack (Sean Penn) reflects on his troubled family life.
Although the Tree of Life doesn't feature on the top 1000 films of all time list, it would definitely be number one on the top 1000 pretentious Oscar-bait list. I call it Oscar-bait. The better term would be failed Oscar-bait. It was nominated for three Oscars: director, picture and cinematography, it ultimately didn't win any. Although the cinematography was gorgeous especially the surreal visuals of the birth of the universe, it all became tedious after a while.
It reminded me of Mailk's third film: the equally pretentious The Thin Red Line, which had lots of random close-ups of bugs. Okay, it was cool and arty. But what was the point of it all? Was there even a point? Did there need to be a point? Knowing Malik, there probably was, but it all went over my head.
Another similarity is how Malik is once again wasted his casted. I can't really comment on whether Pitt, Chastain and Penn were good or bad, because they played visual to Malik's cerebral visuals. For Christ's sake, these actors have five acting Oscars between them. Sean Penn has three Oscars, yet he was completely irrelevant to the plot. Cut him out and nothing would change except for a twenty-minute shorter run-time.
The Tree of Life was classic Terrence Malik. High-brow, intellectual and just so damn pretentious.
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