Variety
Result is pure-grade art cinema destined primarily for the delectation of Malick partisans and adventurous arthouse-goers.
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The Tree of Life
1950s-set drama from filmmaking master Terrence Malick (Badlands, The Thin Red Line), starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. Winner of the Palme d'Or (Best Film) at Cannes Film Festival 2011.
An impressionistic story of a Midwestern family in the 1950s, the film follows the life of eldest son, Jack (Penn, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father (Pitt) while questioning the existence of faith. "Malick draws a picture of family life as archetypal as a child’s questions about God, and connects it all to rapturous visions of the origins of the universe and the end of time." (NZ International Film Festival 2011)
Winner of the Palme d'Or (Best Film) at Cannes Film Festival 2011.
2011Rating: M, for some thematic material139 minsUSA
Drama
- Director:
- Terrence Malick ('The New World', 'The Thin Red Line', 'Days of Heaven', 'Badlands')
- Writer:
- Terrence Malick
- Cast:
- Brad PittSean PennFiona ShawJoanna GoingJessica ChastainKari Matchett
The Tree of Life / Reviews
Total Film
Terrence Malick’s spiritual odyssey is baffling, unique and overspilling with wonder.
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The New York Times
With disarming sincerity and daunting formal sophistication The Tree of Life ponders some of the hardest and most persistent questions, the kind that leave adults speechless when children ask them.
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Sunday Star-Times
It is clear there are religious themes and while watching this film we are supposed to ponder the big questions, like what is the meaning of life?
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Roger Ebert
The only other film I've seen with this boldness of vision is Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," and it lacked Malick's fierce evocation of human feeling.
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Los Angeles Times
While Malick's great ability holds us for a time, it is finally not enough to compensate for a lack of dramatic involvement - those eschatological quandaries tend to overwhelm the story. The Tree of Life, its enormous advantages notwithstanding, ends up a film that demands to be admired but cannot be easily embraced.
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Hollywood Reporter
A beauteous creation that ponders the imponderables, asks the questions that religious and thoughtful people have posed for millennia and provokes expansive philosophical musings along with intense personal introspection.
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Empire Magazine
There is simply nothing like it out there: profound, idiosyncratic, complex, sincere and magical; a confirmation that cinema can aspire to art.
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A.V. Club
In terms of scale, The Tree Of Life recalls the mammoth ambition of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," but it's also more intimate and personal than Malick's previous films, rooted in vivid memories of growing up in '50s Texas.
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