To the Wonder

This one reminds me of an old Mystery Science Theater 3000 joke that I’d like to dust off: “Seems like they forgot to have things happen in this movie.”  So let’s take a quick look.

Story?  Uhh, a guy (Ben Affleck (The Voyage of the Mimi)) invites his French girlfriend (Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace))to live with him in Oklahoma…and…they’re in love but they fight a bunch…and then she goes away for a while…and then the guy falls in love with another woman (Rachel McAdams (The Hot Chick))…but they break up and the French girlfriend comes back into the picture…there’s also this priest (Javier Bardem (Collateral)) who’s losing his faith in God and Jesus and religion ‘n’ shit…and…uhh…whatever.

Acting?  It’s fine I guess.  Everyone goes through a range of emotions and they all pull it off well enough.

Dialogue?  There’s very little.  There’s more whisper talking narration about love and all that than dialogue.  It’s almost a silent movie the way this is presented.

Cinematography and production?  It’s your usual Malick type deal with lots of nature, people staring, walking and playing with each other, etc.  There’s no real form or structure to any of it.  And of course it’s beautifully shot and edited together with a nice score.    

Here’s where I’m coming from in case you guys don’t know how I feel about Terrence Malick.  Generally speaking I love his films.  They’re some of the most stunning and challenging pictures I’ve ever seen both in terms of story and production.  The New World is my favorite of his (although I have a feeling that Voyage of Time could replace that) and also one my favorite films of all time.  I’m not afraid to admit that I have a huge goddamn crush on his filmmaking style.    

So to an extent I’m gonna like pretty much anything that Malick comes out with.  The way he makes movies just does it for me.  This is no exception.  I really like the way parts of this thing are put together.  However, this one is unfortunately his worst film so far.  It’s aimless.  We’re shown all of these images of this couple loving each other, then hating each other, then loving each other and so on but there isn’t a lot of substance to it.  Even though I spent almost two hours with these characters I feel like I don’t know them.  Is Ben Affleck really an asshole or is it all Olga?  She’s conflicted about her love for Ben but is she also kinda crazy?  The thing is we learn so little about these characters that you could project almost anything you want onto them.  I don’t think that’s supposed to be the idea.  It seems like they’re supposed to be complex people but it doesn’t come off that way.  Everything about the story and the characters just isn’t interesting.

It’s really a shame that this is such a weak effort.  Not even Malick’s incredible filmmaking could save this one.  Story-wise there’s so little to grab onto and get engaged in.  Malick goes too deep with his own style and ends up folding in on himself.  The Tree of Life started down that road but didn’t fully commit.  It’s weird but that picture seems a little more grounded.  To the Wonder floats off into the ether.  Questions that Malick may or may not be posing about love and religion get lost in the meandering.

If you like abstract and arty as fuck movies then you’ll probably dig this.  If you like Malick you also might dig this.  But if you felt that The Tree of Life was pushing your boundaries then this will take you over the edge.  I still love the man’s style, which means that after all the shit talk I laid down there’s a part of me that kinda likes this film a bit.  Is it possible to have too much of a good thing?  I dunno.  But it sure is possible to have too much Malick.  Sorry Terry, you’re the fuckin’ man but I just wasn’t all that into this one.