Terence Malick is a great visual artist with big ideas though sometimes the big idea's aren't as big as you might think, so let me dumb down his new movie "The Tree Of Life" for you.1. A middle aged man remembers his youth in 1950s Waco, Texas.
2. Authotarian dad, saintly Mom, sweet kid brother who is destined to die in Vietnam.
3. This is refractured through a cosmic view of the heavens to make the point that God has bigger plans then simply making good things happen to good people (it begins with a quotation from the Book of Job, and actually has a preacher spell it out).
4. Because Malick removes all exposition -the better to show it is a memory play, the stranger it appears.
I loved it, Brad Pitt was excellent as the tyranical father, Jessica Chastain all presence as the mother, Sean Penn as the son grown up broods a lot. The ending is considered a misfire but it worked fine for me.
And music chorales, choirs, religious humming, spacey sound effects for the big bang, and, Pitt is a failed musician, who plays Brahms a lot.
So here's some Brahms to get you in the mood: