C Directed by Terrence Malick Starring Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko Review by Jon Kissel |  |
Terrence Malick’s mythic, ethereal films always find the intimate and the internal amongst the swirl of larger events, but in To the Wonder, there is no larger event beyond an unconvincing romance. Malick’s style lives on the razor’s edge between profundity and parody, and it’s often the grander stakes of colonial Virginia or the Pacific WWII theater that keeps his characters and their breathy inner monologues from becoming tiresome. Without those stakes or any epic sweep to speak of, To the Wonder’s in trouble.
Only Malick’s sixth film in almost 40 years, To the Wonder contains much of what makes a new film from a director with such a sparse output into an event, though this feeling has been dulled by a run of mediocre navel-gazing films that To the Wonder kicked off. The film does start sensationally, as only a Malick film shot by master cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki can. It begins in that most photographed and picaresque of cities, Paris, as lovers Neil (Ben Affleck) and Marina (Olga Kurylenko) frolic down the Champs de Mars. They travel out of the city and towards the equally beautiful Mont St. Michel, a medieval monastary built on a rocky outcropping overlooking Atlantic. These sequences are transcendent, beautiful people moving through beautiful spaces, and then Malick cuts to the couple and Marina’s daughter Tatiana (Tatiana Chiline) moving with Neil back to Oklahoma, and UNESCO sites are swapped out for Sonic drive-ins. A Francophile like myself felt this stab in the gut, not unlike the feeling after eating at Sonic.
The vast open spaces and banal housing developments of Oklahoma serve as a stultifying downer for the vivacious Marina, and the relationship deteriorates, but To the Wonder’s greatest failure is that this is not some tragedy to be lamented. Even in Paris, Neil is not a high-energy individual. Whether that’s a character choice or Affleck’s inability to convey passion, the effect is a complete non-investment in his character, especially compared to Marina who he is plainly not compatible with. Malick often makes his female leads frolic and flit through tall grass or beaches, but never more than here. Marina comes across as impossible to spend time with, as it’s nonstop whimsy and eccentricity with her, or at least until she’s childishly pouting. Nothing in Malick’s filmography to this point has been less compelling than this forced relationship between the intolerable and the uninterested.
Supporting Neil and Marina is Javier Bardem’s Father Quintana, a local priest who serves as a possible inspiration for Ernst Toller in First Reformed. Quintana’s lost his passion and is going through the motions, perfunctorily saying Mass and counseling Marina. Bardem’s hangdog affect is more convincing than Affleck’s similar one, but the reason for his presence is unclear. As he films all things, Malick captures the subjects of Quintana’s charitable work with the love and affection of magic-hour lighting, perhaps in a thematic push to illuminate the capacity for joy and purpose in the service of others, but Quintana’s arc remains unfinished by the credits. More integral is Rachel McAdams as a romantic alternative for Neil. She’s a less insufferable grass-frolicker than Kurylenko, but this relationship too fades into the background, an accurate if acinematic depiction of how someone with Neil’s joyless existence might be unable to be with people.
To the Wonder is superior to the drudgery of Knight of Cups, Malick’s follow-up, but the seams are showing for a director who previously had an impeccable record. There’s nothing he can do to erase the majesty of The Tree of Life or Days of Heaven. Maybe Malick needs to take years-long breaks between films to return to fighting weight. The takeaway from To the Wonder is that Malick’s got a superlative return to form in him that spends more time in France than ten minutes of a two hour film. C
The vast open spaces and banal housing developments of Oklahoma serve as a stultifying downer for the vivacious Marina, and the relationship deteriorates, but To the Wonder’s greatest failure is that this is not some tragedy to be lamented. Even in Paris, Neil is not a high-energy individual. Whether that’s a character choice or Affleck’s inability to convey passion, the effect is a complete non-investment in his character, especially compared to Marina who he is plainly not compatible with. Malick often makes his female leads frolic and flit through tall grass or beaches, but never more than here. Marina comes across as impossible to spend time with, as it’s nonstop whimsy and eccentricity with her, or at least until she’s childishly pouting. Nothing in Malick’s filmography to this point has been less compelling than this forced relationship between the intolerable and the uninterested.
Supporting Neil and Marina is Javier Bardem’s Father Quintana, a local priest who serves as a possible inspiration for Ernst Toller in First Reformed. Quintana’s lost his passion and is going through the motions, perfunctorily saying Mass and counseling Marina. Bardem’s hangdog affect is more convincing than Affleck’s similar one, but the reason for his presence is unclear. As he films all things, Malick captures the subjects of Quintana’s charitable work with the love and affection of magic-hour lighting, perhaps in a thematic push to illuminate the capacity for joy and purpose in the service of others, but Quintana’s arc remains unfinished by the credits. More integral is Rachel McAdams as a romantic alternative for Neil. She’s a less insufferable grass-frolicker than Kurylenko, but this relationship too fades into the background, an accurate if acinematic depiction of how someone with Neil’s joyless existence might be unable to be with people.
To the Wonder is superior to the drudgery of Knight of Cups, Malick’s follow-up, but the seams are showing for a director who previously had an impeccable record. There’s nothing he can do to erase the majesty of The Tree of Life or Days of Heaven. Maybe Malick needs to take years-long breaks between films to return to fighting weight. The takeaway from To the Wonder is that Malick’s got a superlative return to form in him that spends more time in France than ten minutes of a two hour film. C
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