The Tree Of Life (2011) *

Directed by:  Terence Malick

Starring:  Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain

The Tree Of Life is a wonderfully complex film which is awe-inspiring...if you're on dope or just dropped some serious LSD.    Since I do none of those things, I'm stuck watching a boring mess of a film which inspired me to see how well the fast-forward button works on my DVR.   

The last Malick film I saw, 1998's The Thin Red Line, was a long, absolutely mind-numbingly boring existential piece focusing on American soldiers in the Pacific in World War II.     I'm not one for hyperbole, but it was one of the worst films I had ever seen.   13 years later, the newest Malick film will be in the same company.

The Tree Of Life stars Penn as Jack, an architect who suffered a recent familial loss and is now thinking back to his childhood.    During his flashbacks, he visualizes his mother, father, brothers, and if I'm correct, the big bang, the creation of life, single-celled organisms growing into larger organisms, dinosaurs, etc. etc.   All the while, questions are being asked of God.   I don't know what all of this is supposed to mean.   Malick probably does but he isn't sharing so I wind up sitting through this slog.

I don't really know how to judge the performances.    Very little dialogue is spoken and there is no really character building here.    It seems Dad is stern but loving, Mom is quiet and loving, and that's about it.   They are seen in dreamy flashbacks with lots of camera movement reminiscient of an acid-trip, or at least how such trips are portrayed in movies.    The film has a dreamlike quality and like most dreams, you wake up having forgotten most of it and remember only the outlines.

Many critics fawned over The Tree Of Life as a masterpiece.   What am I missing?   I see it as absolute junk.    I don't know what others see and they have their opinions.    I guess if a film is "different" in some way that makes it more a critical darling, especially since film critics have seen them all and are maybe weary of the same-old, same-old.    If same-old, same-old means a film with a definable plot, characters, and reason for existing that doesn't require psychotropic drugs to understand, then I'll be happy with that.