I try to see at least one movie from the directors who seem to get a lot of critical acclaim without getting much commercial success. These aren’t the sorts of movies you sit through for the heck of it. These are movies where someone is trying to say something using cinema as a medium. To that end, I’ve long been curious about director Terrence Malick. And, since, his The Tree of Life was leaving HBO at the end of September, this seemed like as good a time as any.
I knew this wasn’t going to be some sort of popcorn flick, so let’s see what is actually what here.
Malick’s film (mostly) follows the life of Jack O’Brien. Spent mostly in his childhood, we see Jack growing up in what looks like mid 60s somewhere in the American South with his parents (Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain) and two brothers. Chastain, in voiceover, explains that there are two possible paths to take, one of grace and one of nature. Grace, we’re told, is full of love and forgiveness while nature is about about dominance and authority. Given the way the movie is set up, it seems to suggest Chastain’s Mrs. O’Brien is about grace as she is fun-loving and playful with her children while Pitt’s Mr. O’Brien is following the path of nature as someone who hands down strict rules, insisting, for example, this his son alternately address him as “father” or “sir”.
It is probably worth noting that Mr. O’Brien does love his son. He just doesn’t demonstrate feelings well in those childhood scenes, presumably reflected upon by an adult Jack (Sean Penn) as he rides and elevator up a skyscraper at his job. I get the impression the movie is suggesting Jack, as an adult, is trying to choose between grace, associated with his mother and with God, and nature, associated with his father.
And that, in many ways, describes this movie to a “t”. Malick doesn’t really spell anything out. He leaves impressions for the audience to fill in. One of Jack’s brothers dies in an early scene, set again in Jack’s childhood, and while the movie never outright says what happened to Jack’s brother, the manner in which Mrs. O’Brien gets the news suggests the young man may have died in combat in some war somewhere, probably Vietnam. From this early scene, following Chastain’s opening monologue, we can see exactly how Jack’s parents take in life. Mrs. O’Brien is emotionally and demonstrably devastated while Mr. O’Brien, though also in mourning, is clearly holding it all in and trying to be the stoic one.
Pitt’s performance in this movie greatly impressed me. Though his rules seem harsh and unrelenting, even when he’s arguing with Chastain, you never get the impression that he hates his family. He does feel resentment towards his lot in life, and he does have strict rules to follow, but when Jack at one point says Mrs. O’Brien loves Jack more than her husband, Pitt’s face shows something like a bit of wry amusement that his son thinks that way. Given some of the ways he punishes the boy in other scenes, it makes the character a lot more complex than some sort of cartoon villain.
But again, that’s Malick’s movie. He ties all this family is going through, impressions given as opposed to spelled out, while also tossing in the creation of the universe, long beautiful shots of nature, and even a couple dinosaurs tossed in before ending with what looks like the heat death of the universe. If anything, the movie is about trying to accept grace, a path that does not automatically lead to success or happiness or act as protection against bad times over nature, since nature doesn’t offer those guarantees either but at least you won’t be spending time trying to dominate those you see as weaker than yourself and you may even be able to enjoy creation while you’re still alive.
At least, that’s what I think happened. Malick didn’t spell it out, and quite frankly, I am not sure I wanted him to.
Grade: A
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