The Whole Enchilada

Terrence Malick’s film “Tree of Life” may be the best adult movie for summer.  And unlike Super 8 this film feels like a real home movie.  Okay, you’re probably going to be confused when the dinosaurs show up but this isn’t a tribute to Spielberg.  I suppose Malick just needed the whole canvas of creation to come to grips with the solitary yet wonderful experience of being alive.

At the beginning of the film you hear the voice of the mother (Jessica Chastain) who suggests that the choice in life is between grace and nature. The father, played by Brad Pitt, is determined to show his children that life is a struggle that must be met with strength.  We see the contrast in how the mother gives them that sense of wonder and splendor that exists around them.

There are three sons and we follow their young lives in a small town.  In some ways, the simplicity of the family scenes mirror my own life.  Playing with friends, swimming at the local recreational pool, attending mass and school all feel like the world I inhabited in the 1950’s.

The oldest boy, who by example, must live up to his father’s expectations is tested repeatedly to become a man.  We have brief glimpses of Freud’s notion of the Oedipal Complex as the boy wishes his father dead. He sometimes challenges his younger more sensitive brother to take risks.

The film functions like a kaleidoscope of memories.  Sean Penn, as the older brother, is now a successful architect but is haunted by the death of his sibling.  Towering glass buildings surround him as he walks through the canyons of skyscrapers.  Then we are brought back to the past where the mother is enclosed in a glass casket right out of Sleeping Beauty.

The attic of the home becomes a strange hypnotic image for the filmmaker.  One boy discovers this secret room and uses it as a refuge, but we return again and again to the place and another figure, that of an adult man, hovers over the boy, too large for the narrow walls and ceiling.  Who is he?

There are breathtaking images of solar systems, suns, sons, sperm, and stars.  You feel like you might be looking directly into the eye of God.  Whatever you experience, you’ll be moved by Malick’s magical mystery tour.