Film Review: Terrence Malick’s Captivating Meditation on ‘The Tree of Life’

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CHICAGO – I’ve seen Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life” twice now and I still struggle with how to put my reaction to it into words. The film almost defies typical critical discussion with its lack of narrative thrust and a structure that makes it far closer to a poem than a piece of prose. How do you even begin to talk about a piece that works with emotions instead of plot twists? Memories instead of motives? “The Tree of Life” is an amazing accomplishment that challenges the viewer by using different cinematic tools than what they expect. Some will shut down like a kid in church refusing to listen to a sermon. But if you truly give in to the beauty of this amazing film, you might even find yourself changed by it. How often can you say that at the cinema?

Rating: 5.0/5.0

The word “haunting” is often over-used, so I will try and clarify a phrase that might have lost its critical meaning on a personal level. I dreamt about “The Tree of Life” the two nights after I saw it for the first time. It has changed the way I look at my son and how I think about the institution of family. Rarely has a film had as deep an emotional and even spiritual impact on me as “The Tree of Life.” Especially after the second viewing, when I allowed critical thought and analysis to give way to less easily-defined responses to the film. This is a work built on elements of life for which there often is no concrete definition – beauty, grace, nature…emotions, memories, and lessons learned.

Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “The Tree of Life” in our reviews section.

“The Tree of Life” opens with two passages from Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” It is followed with a narration about the difference between nature and grace. The former needs and asks. It needs sustenance, light, shelter. Nature is finite. Grace needs nothing. It is forever. It has been here since before time and will be here after it. As the mother (Jessica Chastain) of the piece tells us, “No one who loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end.” Essentially, the rest of the film will be about finding grace, losing it as we get older, and hoping that we find it again before it’s too late. Don’t worry. Whatever grace means to you – God, hope, love, something else – is unimportant to the overall impact of “The Tree of Life”.

To tell that story, Malick opens his film with the loss of a child. A 19-year-old boy has been killed (we don’t know how…could be in Vietnam) and his parents (Chastain & Brad Pitt) are clearly devastated. It is revealed that this loss is being remembered by the adult version (Sean Penn) of the boy’s older brother. He wonders how his mother survived such a horrendous tragedy. How do we get past the unspeakable? How do we keep going? It’s unclear exactly why but the adult is trying to figure out how he got here and how to keep going, thoughts I think most people have at different periods in their lives. To do so, he explores his memories of childhood and how his mother, father, and brothers formed his very existence.

Continue reading for Brian Tallerico’s full “The Tree of Life” review.

The Tree of Life
Photo credit: Fox Searchlight