Terrence Malick's only misfire as far as I'm concerned, To the Wonder is the movie his detractors have always accused him of making: rarefied, overlong and in desperate need of a stronger screenplay to sustain the dazzling visual talent of the director.
A meditation on love and loss, the movie follows the lives of Neil (Affleck), Marina (Kurylenko), Jane (McAdams) and Father Quintana (Bardem). Sadly, unlike in previous, better efforts by the director (The Thin Red Line, Days of Heaven), the sparse narrative isn't anchored by sharply defined characters. Neil is a bland cipher, Marina a capricious woman whose mood swings (it's implied she has a bipolar disorder) are meant to give an illusion of depth. McAdams in an all-too-brief appearance fares better as the vulnerable Jane; Bardem's sequences are the highlights of the movie, as his burnt-out Padre is by far the most intriguing character.
6/10
A meditation on love and loss, the movie follows the lives of Neil (Affleck), Marina (Kurylenko), Jane (McAdams) and Father Quintana (Bardem). Sadly, unlike in previous, better efforts by the director (The Thin Red Line, Days of Heaven), the sparse narrative isn't anchored by sharply defined characters. Neil is a bland cipher, Marina a capricious woman whose mood swings (it's implied she has a bipolar disorder) are meant to give an illusion of depth. McAdams in an all-too-brief appearance fares better as the vulnerable Jane; Bardem's sequences are the highlights of the movie, as his burnt-out Padre is by far the most intriguing character.
6/10