Alas, director-tease Terrence Malick does what he does best….deliver a new film once in every blue moon. And let me tell you, this film COMES with blue moons, and sweeping seas, sunflower fields and epic-style landscapes. Like a visionary symphony it gives Planet Earth a run for its money. But someplace in there a frustrated-chair-shifting audience awaits the movies message – it’s truth – it’s full circle that never even tells us who anybody is (Sean Penn appears, but is he a new husband, a brother, a lover? What?) In this rather disjointed story, one IS certain that Mr. O’Brien (Brad Pitt) is a Texan father to three sons. He raises them with one third love, one third discipline and one third fear. But as the small boys turn into teens the movie shifts unnaturally to ALL fear. One would assume it’s the father’s own lost personal dreams and frustrations – putting it all aside to be the lone breadwinner as his angelic red-headed wife (Jessica Chastain) floats through the trees. Literally. The flashbacks of heaven and hell and water (baptism?) seem to mean something, but end up coming off as borderline pretentious. Like the Emperor’s New Clothes the joke is on us, or is it? Somehow we’re mesmerized by a film that keeps trying to get us somewhere but never quite delivers. In the end, the bigger wonder is that this movie was actually released instead of taking an offer from the BBC for their seven kit DVD collection, somewhere between dinosaurs and pollination. Two tiaras for the visuals
