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The Fountain (2006)

tomatometer

51

Average Rating: 5.9/10
Reviews Counted: 196
Fresh: 100 | Rotten: 96

The Fountain -- a movie about metaphysics, universal patterns, Biblical symbolism, and boundless love spread across one thousand years -- is visually rich but suffers from its own unfocused ambitions.

26

Average Rating: 4.4/10
Critic Reviews: 46
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 34

The Fountain -- a movie about metaphysics, universal patterns, Biblical symbolism, and boundless love spread across one thousand years -- is visually rich but suffers from its own unfocused ambitions.

audience

73

liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 234,155

My Rating

Movie Info

Requiem for a Dream director Darren Aronofsky switches gears from drug-induced urban malaise to abstract science fiction with this time-tripping symbolic tale of a man's thousand-year quest to save the woman he loves. Moving between representational stories and images, this meditation on life and death focuses on the concept of the mythical Tree of Life that is said to bestow immortality to all who drink of its sap. In one of the film's allegorical timelines, a 16th century Spanish conquistador

PG-13,

Drama, Science Fiction & Fantasy

May 18, 2007

$10.0M

Warner Bros. Pictures - Official Site External Icon

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All Critics (197) | Top Critics (46) | Fresh (109) | Rotten (99) | DVD (30)

I will concede the film is not a great success. Too many screens of blinding lights. Too many transitions for their own sake. Abrupt changes of tone.

September 14, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | Comments (15)
Chicago Sun-Times
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Lurches on a thin line between hyper-ornate space oddity and extended perfume advert.

January 25, 2007 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
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The Fountain is the story of a gifted artist who dared to reach for the stars and paid for his ambition with a really stupid movie.

November 30, 2006 Full Review Source: Slate
Slate
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Mr. Aronofsky's outlook on life remains too constantly pessimistic for my taste, and too completely joyless as well.

November 29, 2006 Full Review Source: New York Observer
New York Observer
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This is one of the worst movies of the year.

November 27, 2006 Full Review Source: Ebert & Roeper | Comments (18)
Ebert & Roeper
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The movie may have significant truths to impart, although I have my doubts, but it feels too inexperienced, too unworldly, to have earned the right to them.

November 27, 2006
New Yorker
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The enormous, and sometimes inspired, visual arc of Aronofsky's reach sadly exceeds his narrative's basic grasp.

November 16, 2012 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine Australasia
Empire Magazine Australasia

Visual alchemist Darren Aronofsky's most personal work is a double helix of love and loss - death entwined with life as existence's only reliable truths. It offers a transfixing merger of biological imperatives and musings on creativity and tragedy.

September 24, 2010 Full Review Source: Suite101.com | Comment (1)
Suite101.com

A metaphysical muddle.

July 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Boston Phoenix
Boston Phoenix

It's difficult to recall another American film that, in pursuing a passionate and personal vision, goes so maddeningly, uproariously wrong.

July 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Sight and Sound | Comment (1)
Sight and Sound

The continuous sense of deeply felt discovery tempers the movie's overreaching pretentiousness

August 28, 2009 Full Review Source: CinePassion
CinePassion

You can judge for yourself whether a money shot of semenesque tree-sap is a proper payoff, but the movie is at least texturally rich, tonally consistent (brooding, always) and much fussed over by its maker.

August 7, 2008 Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review
Sacramento News & Review

Epic sci-fi romance explores faith and love.

July 24, 2008 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media
Common Sense Media

This film raises an interesting question: How far is a viewer willing to follow a talented filmmaker down a rabbit hole, when it becomes clear that said filmmaker has lost his way?

July 7, 2008 Full Review Source: ESplatter | Comments (5)
ESplatter

It's a simple story told with Zen directness, its fingers deep in the age-old questions, its eyes and ears wide open to the sensual potential of cinema.

February 13, 2008 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com
eFilmCritic.com

So simple, so elaborate, and yet so utterly brilliant...

January 23, 2008 Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed
Cinema Crazed

Despite its flaws, it's still worth watching.

July 14, 2007 Full Review Source: Big Picture Big Sound
Big Picture Big Sound

Seldom in cinema has eschatology been treated with such intelligence, or inspired such aching awe.

July 6, 2007 Full Review Source: Eye for Film | Comments (3)
Eye for Film

Yes, The Fountain is ridiculous, arguably pretentious, pining for your attention like a sixth grade emo kid. And I love it to pieces.

July 3, 2007 Full Review Source: Projection Booth
Projection Booth

If one is to be left with something in the end, it is the realization that its creator is fully in love with not just the result of his art, but the very happening of it.

July 1, 2007 Full Review Source: Cinemaphile.org
Cinemaphile.org

Si, puede ser demasiado, pero de alguna manera Aronofsky, aunque arriesgando caer en el exceso y hasta en el ridículo, se las arregla para que el relato sea atrapante (...)

June 25, 2007 Full Review Source: Uruguay Total
Uruguay Total

It will no doubt find itself aging quite well, appreciated long after its (inevitably short) theatrical run.

June 21, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Scouts
Film Scouts

Audience Reviews for The Fountain

"My God, it's full of shit!"

But seriously folks - after just one viewing - i'm just .. wow - huh?! Watching the film, I was wildly applauding Aronofsky's superballsy audacious vision while simultaneously cringing at his simplistic sentimentality.

2001 + What the Bleep Do We Know + dimestore romance + any episode of E.R. = wtf?

For what it's worth - i thought Hugh Jackman was great - perhaps the only tangible revelation of the film.
June 21, 2007
brooklynspo

Super Reviewer

While Darren Aronofsky's ambitious film may not satisfy everyone with it's sentimentality and oddly clinical visual approach, it still is a film that dares to be something completely unique. Here is a work of a director who is willing to push boundaries of filmmaking to it's edge. This is a film that at the same time feels cold and distant as it is heartbreaking and hopeful.
I guess that Aronofsky intented this film as a love letter to his own wife, but who knows. Not many directors would dare to create something this unique like Aronofsky does. You can tell that this films has meant a lot to him.
I rather watch films like The Fountain that makes us ask questions about life and immortality itself than something which is spoon fed to us. This might occasionally drown a into it's own philosophical hocus pocus and it seems to be taking it's overreaching and ambitious story awfully serious at times. Things are not also helped by corny dialogue which sounds awfully forced at times. But as i said, i admire Darren Aronofsky for his bravery as a director. He is one of the most interesting voices in modern cinema and when you go to see his films you never know what to expect from him. He is an unexpected force of nature as an artist.
The Fountain is Interesting, melancholic and timeless film that forces you to think. It certainly will gain a cult statuts in years to come and it has visual like no other film has. Unique but flawed work of a master.
August 19, 2009
emilkakko

Super Reviewer

    1. Tomas/Tommy/Tom Creo: All these years, all these memories, there was you. You pulled me through time.
    – Submitted by Natasha R (6 months ago)
    1. Lab Support Primate: Through telepathy: why do you humans operate on my brain? It causes much stress for me.
    2. Tomas/Tommy/Tom Creo: Because we humans have lost our sense of purpose, so much that we must try and find it in other intities, no matter how primitive they may be.
    – Submitted by Drea L (15 months ago)
    1. Isabel/Izzi Creo: I will not die, not here, not now, never...
    – Submitted by Nicholas C (15 months ago)
    1. Tomas/Tommy/Tom Creo: Death is a disease, it's like any other. And there's a cure. A cure - and I will find it.
    – Submitted by Gendrith A (17 months ago)
    1. Tomas/Tommy/Tom Creo: There's been progress at work...
    2. Isabel/Izzi Creo: [laughs] My conquistador! Always conquering...
    – Submitted by Gendrith A (17 months ago)
    1. Lord of Xibalba: Death is the road to awe.
    – Submitted by Gendrith A (17 months ago)

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