Brad Pitt, Sean Penn trapped in National Geographic Stock Footage in Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life"

By Mark Wilk

If you're an outgoing person, like myself, chances are you've wound up at a party or BBQ or social gathering of some sort, and chances are that this has happened to you:

You strike up a conversation with an eccentric but interesting person, and he begins to tell you a story. He tells it with broad strokes, with gusto and passion. And, at first, it seems exciting. You're genuinely interested; you want to know more. At about the five-minute-mark, however, you start to find it dragging on a bit too long, and a strange, horrible doubt creeps into your mind: does this story actually ... (*gulp) ... end?

Well, if you're lucky, that person eventually gets to the point. But if you're unlucky, it'll turn out to be a long, long story with no particular meaning, and that the fellow's talking for the sake of just, well ... talking, and nothing else.

Terrence Malick's new movie The Tree of Life is the cinematic equivalent of this. It's a big film with great special effects, meticulously made, beautifully acted, and completely without focus. It's like something a first year film student would make. We sense the wonderment of a movie-lover who's just picked up a camera and wants to film all the craziest, goofiest shots of trees and waterfalls that he can think of, without regard to such inconveniences as, oh, say ... a plot.

Seriously folks, don't expect one. The only semblance of a coherent story is a series of disjointed scenes involving a 1950's Texas family whose father (Brad Pitt) alternates between clinging affection and frustrated, stern abuse. Hunter McCracken is the sensational young actor portraying the son, Jack, who helplessly endures along with his two brothers.

Typically, such a story might have a fighting chance at being engaging, except that Malick, who has some sort of Popular Science fetish, intercuts the human drama with images of sunlight soaked trees, dinosaurs (yes, dinosaurs, I kid you not), supernovas, and volcanoes exploding through space. A close friend whispered to me halfway through the screening that it felt like "watching a screensaver."

Not an exaggeration! Here's the difference, though, between Terrence Malick and Stanley Kubrick, who filled the final act of his opus 2001, A Space Odyssey with similar imagery - Kubrick, genius that he was, took the time to concentrate on the human element of his story. Malick does not. He's more concerned with the cosmos than with the characters.

If there's any philosophical or spiritual meaning in The Tree of Life, you'll have to find it out on your own, because Malick doesn't explain anything. He never deigns to give any interviews. The guy's made only five movies in forty years, and despite a lot of critical success (not this critic, but he's fooled a few people), he keeps mostly to himself and does not even attend his own screenings.

That means that with any luck, you'll never have to listen to him at a party or BBQ, or other social gathering, talking your head off for two hours about supernovas, dinosaurs, sunflower fields, and humanity's place in the cosmos. In fact, you can steer clear of him altogether by not seeing his movie.

Oh, and, by the way, please don't be fooled into checking out the film because of the top billing given to Sean Penn. He's on screen, here, for all of four minutes, has virtually no dialogue, and is given the thankless task of looking pained and angst-ridden as he walks on a beach and rides an elevator.

Not a bad payday, I suppose, but I highly doubt he'll sign on for The Tree of Knowledge.

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