To The Wonder Reviews

A Rhythmic Design of Life Around Sustaining Love and Faith.

Good Film! To The Wonder is a visually and aurally stunning experience but this outweighs narrative and emotional engagement, leaving it a bit cold where it tries to be all-encompassing warm. Amidst this metaphysical and highly personal journey Malick gives us not only a sense of the "wonder of love" but also celebrates our sense of wonder in general. Our ability to be overwhelmed by our emotions for another person, nature or even God. "To the Wonder" is a film about faiths in many shapes and strives for that forgiveness that elates our disappointments and resentments in order to finally love in a state of personal liberty and acceptance. A movie for a few with a theme for everybody.

Neil (Ben Affleck) is an American traveling in Europe who meets and falls in love with Marina (Olga Kurylenko), an Ukrainian divorcée who is raising her 10-year-old daughter Tatiana in Paris. The lovers travel to Mont St. Michel, the island abbey off the coast of Normandy, basking in the wonder of their newfound romance. Neil makes a commitment to Marina, inviting her to relocate to his native Oklahoma with Tatiana. He takes a job as an environmental inspector and Marina settles into her new life in America with passion and vigor. After a holding pattern, their relationship cools. Marina finds solace in the company of another exile, the Catholic priest Father Quintana (Javier Bardem), who is undergoing a crisis of faith. Work pressures and increasing doubt pull Neil further apart from Marina, who returns to France with Tatiana when her visa expires. Neil reconnects with Jane (Rachel McAdams), an old flame. They fall in love until Neil learns that Marina has fallen on hard times.

'To the Wonder'. A series of moments. Undeniably striking in its visual beauty and camera movement. I felt detached the whole time, and wanted more emotionally.

Kurylenko is utterly captivating, and Emmanuel Lubezki is a master of his craft; insanely good cinematography.

A few moments of real inspiration surrounded by many more moments of tedium and some crashingly banal voice-over narration containing lines such as, "Love makes us one."

The film was most alive for me during the 15 or so minutes when Rachel McAdams was on screen. When the main stars, Olga Kurylenko and Ben Affleck, were on screen, I felt often that I was watching a perfume ad.

Neil (Affleck), an introspective engineer, moves his French girlfriend Marina (Kurylenko) and her daughter from Paris to his Oklahoma hometown. Marina wants to wed but, as a divorcee, she is unable to marry in a Catholic church and so applies for dispensation. When her visa runs out, she reluctantly leaves Neil to return home to France. In her absence, Neil reconnects with Jane (McAdams), a woman he knew in his youth. They develop a romantic relationship which ends abruptly when Marina returns to wed Neil in a civil ceremony. Seeing the church as responsible for keeping the couple apart, local priest Father Quintana (Bardem) begins to question his faith.
Unimpressed with his exceptionally intermittent filmography, I never understood the hype around Malick. His films looked beautiful of course but they never connected with me. His latest two works, 'The Tree of Life' and 'To the Wonder', conversely, have hit me on a gut level, two of the greatest experiences I've had in a cinema over the last few years. Ironically, I seem to have fallen for Malick at the same point most have grown frustrated with him. I find it remarkable how anyone who appreciates cinema couldn't be moved by these two movies but I guess, in an era when even comic book heroes have to be "dark" figures, modern audiences have become too cynical for a worldview as optimistic and simple as Malick's. If you want a film that makes you think, look elsewhere. This is cinema that makes you feel.
Some viewers will complain about 'To the Wonder'. They'll complain about the lack of dialogue (Affleck speaks no more than two full sentences). They'll complain about the lack of plot. Those viewers should stick to soap operas rather than venturing out to the movie theater. Stay at home in front of your T.V where you can't bother anyone with your constant texting, your constant reaffirmation of your self-importance. You couldn't possibly appreciate this film with it's central theme that, cast against the might of nature, we are all individually meaningless, because you believe you're somehow above everyone else. That's what allows you the ignorance of ruining other film-goers enjoyment with the incessant tapping of your glowing touchscreen. The rest of us actually enjoy being swept away by a screen that engulfs us, not one small enough to hold in our hands.
So what exactly is 'To the Wonder' all about? That's for you to decide. Don't worry about misinterpreting it. Great cinema is like a glance from a beautiful woman; even when misread it stirs the heart. Cast off your cynicism, turn off your smartphone, and bask in the wonder.

Meditative and reflective, "To The Wonder" is an ethereal glimpse at the emotions of love as perceived by director Terence Malick. Not for everyone and described by one patron as "over two hours of leaves blowing in the wind", Malick's latest is much more down to earth than "The Tree Of Life", but still relies heavily on strong earthly ties like flowers and water. But seeing these images with the subtle scores and delicate nuances brings all brands of emotions from those willing to invest, allowing for one of the most spiritual experiences one can have during a film, the same inflicted by "The Tree Of Life". Like a majority of Malick films, most of the actors could have been anyone. Ben Affleck and Javier Bardem are for the most part just stepping off points for the females around them. Olga Kurylenko captures the heart of the revolving emotions perfectly, presenting an almost childish perspective on the essence of love. Her dancing and spinning captures the lively moments well while her looks of sadness are almost devastating to experience. Also, with how little she is present, Rachel McAdams is also able to reflect some of the same reflections, making it that much harder to see her go. As with most of Malick's body of work, "To The Wonder" is definitely not for everyone but is a much lighter experience than some of his previous films. For me, these films are a form of church, allowing for a deeper look into not just a body of emotions, but into myself as well.

I am down with Malik's intentions. I relish the kind of cinema that doesn't make things easy for an audience, and I see that here without a hint of pretentiousness or self-importance. Many won't and that is their choice. But personally, To The Wonder is the very best kind of romanticized cinema; unconventional, audience dividing, and yet hauntingly beautiful at the same time.

Less ambitious than Tree Of Life, To The Wonder essentially only tackles love and relationships the same way Terrence Malick did before, so if you weren't afraid of the abstract narrative of the aformentioned, you won't appreciate much what's here.

Known for not being much of an actors director, that is very evident in To The Wonder. Amanda Peet, Jessica Chastain amongst other towering actors were completly cut from the movie. Ben Affleck only utters one or two sentences and Olga Kurylenko looks really good on summer dresses. Javier Bardem is actually a nice presence and you can feel by his looks and pose that this man has completly lost it's faith and feels hopeless all the way.

It's the marriage between the strong images, music and actors that truly sets it apart. This is a movie that will work like others didn't in silent spaces and contemplative moments. Sure, sometimes it feels like you're watching a perfume add and human beings simply don't spin around that much in public, but this naive feeling works wonders on tackling subjects such a love, romance, relationships and so on, like few others can. It's pure, emotional, spiritual and if you're open minded enough, you will be dragged onto the feelings it's portraying on a way you didn't think it was possible.

I didn't enjoy this one nearly as much as I did Tree Of Life, but that's not to say it was bad. Terrence Malick is a visual filmmaker, and it absolutely shows here. Most of the shots are visually striking. On the whole, this is a meditative film that looks gorgeous, but not one I could see myself re-watching every so often like, say, Samsara or Baraka. I hope Malick keeps doing what he does best, though, because it's always standout in some way or another.

Even the best filmmakers falter. That's the best way to describe the latest from maverick director Terence Malick (Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, The New World, The Tree of Life), To The Wonder, a beautifully shot, emotionally empty exercise in bewilderment. Plot-heavy its not, as is typical of Malick's films. To The Wonder has lovers Neil (Ben Affleck) and Marina (Olga Kurylenko) walking the Normandy beach together near the monastery of Mont St. Michel. 'Love makes us one,' she tells Neil.

If you say so. When the two of them, Marina being a Ukrainian divorcee who's made a life in Paris, move into Neil's Oklahoma home, Marina's 10-year-old daughter, Tatiana (Tatiana Chiline), of course joins them. All seems well at first. Neil is keeping busy with his job as an environmental inspector while Marina becomes friends with Father Quintana (Javier Bardem), a Catholic priest having a crisis of faith. When Marina returns to Paris, Neil reconnects with old flame Jane (Rachel McAdams). It's all so lackadaisacal and stilted it devolves into emotional malaise, with everyone seemingly trapped in their own bubbles. It helps some that its shot with gorgeous plays of light and shadow by the great Emmanuel Lubezki. the actors are fine, I guess, although Affleck seems to get pushed out of sight as the film goes along. Malick seems more interested in his female stars, but I wasn't all that interested in anybody. The fact that To The Wonder also starred Rachel Weisz, whose scenes and role were cut, illustrates that all sorts of actors find working with Malick a rich and rewarding experience. I'd say Weisz's absence is a good thing for her.

Unless you are a fan of Terrence Malick or are familiar with his other films, this exploration of love in its many stages might be too thin, drawn-out and artsy for those looking for a concrete love story. Having seen all of his films (this is only his sixth film in 40 years), I think this film is one of Malick's lesser efforts, despite beautiful cinematography by Malick regular Emmanuel Lubezki and a solid cast. Though Ben Affleck has top billing, he probably has no more than a page of dialogue. In true Malick fashion, the film is full of voice overs and monologues of characters asking a lot of questions about life and love. There is no clear-cut storyline. It is just a series of montages that guide the movie along. The best way to describe it is a moving abstract painting. This style worked in "The Tree of Life", but here, it feels tedious. Despite the A-list cast, Olga Kurylenko is the movie's standout, as she is the only character we really journey with during the two hours. Had there been a little more dialogue, this film might have had a better outcome. Instead, we get characters walking around outside in grass fields, staring off, and touching one another without saying a word. This is the closet Malick will ever get in making a silent picture without actually making a silent picture.

Grade: B-

"To The Wonder"..... it is visually - poetic and the score is beautiful. Out of all of Terrence Malick's films I did like this one the best. That being said, it is very "long in the tooth" so much so that the credits reference using footage from the "Tree of Life." I'm not sure that he needs to recycle nature footage from previous films. We get it. The beauty of nature speaks volumes - I got that from the "Planet Earth" series on TV. But I also understand that that is Terrence's signature and I finally think he is starting to narrow it down to tell a story. Some images and scenes are repeated a few too many times, but it was beautifully shot.

Olga Kurylenko does a great job as a newbie. She is beautiful and expresses a variety of emotions. One moment she is like a spoiled little girl and the next she has the wonder of a child. Rachel McAdams is in it far too little for my liking. She too is just beautiful as always and even though every word she spoke was but a whisper, her sexy voice sent chills down my spine. Ben Affleck does a good job too, despite only saying about 50 words throughout the film. Again, Terrence Malick is minimalistic on dialogue and heavy on characters prancing through fields.

I was impressed that there was a story that was told. Not sure all of the specific details were conveyed but a love story was revealed. Long gone are the days when hours and hours of footage would be shot and A list actors completely cut out of a movie. I'm talking about you "The Thin Red Line."

This is a very artsy movie and like I said it is visually poetic. Olga does a great job for coming from obscurity and while I thought there was going to be more of a connection between her and Javier Bardem's priest, his character was a good moral compass for the film.

Perhaps on further viewings more things will come to light and develop, but a lot of questions are raised in narration and not necessarily meant to be answered to but to the viewer a jumping off point to have a thought process in their mind frame to think about. Questions that we all think about at one point or another. Luckily, I wasn't distracted, but I easily could have been had I let my mind wander and not focus on the film.

I wanted to love it and on a cinematic level it is amazing to look at, but I still feel his minimal story telling method is just a hair too existential for my liking. Granted I paid full price to see this little independent film, but I like to give great movies a shot especially the little ones that don't get the buzz or have the finances to get the word out.

Marina: Newborn. I open my eyes. I melt. Into the eternal night. A spark. You got me out of the darkness. You gathered me up from earth. You've brought me back to life.

C

Undoubtedly, Terrence Malick is one of the greatest living filmmakers and I have enjoyed every one of his works. That being said, To the Wonder is definitely his weakest. Malick's forte is conveying his thoughts organically and allowing his audiences to feel raw emotions is tantamount to comprehension. However, I felt that To the Wonder was too emotionally distant, even taking into account that was probably part of Malick's intention. However, I know that I will still be thinking about this film for a very long time, and for that alone, I tip him my hat. I'm excited to see what he has in store for the world next.

What a peculiar film Terrence Malick's To The Wonder is. Here is a film-much like its far-reaching predecessor, The Tree of Life-that lies completely, holistically in the spiritual. I don't mean the kind of "spirituality" we subconsciously attribute to Sunday school or hours spent in stuffy, un-air conditioned churches. What I mean, rather, is the type of spirituality achieved by pondering our place within the mystery-the act of attributing, through rumination, our life to the larger forces that may or may not be at work. I know. I can hear you now. The words "here we go again" have just left your lips, under your breath, followed by the to-be-expected (but understood) follow-up act: an emphatic eye roll of relative disdain. Fine. I don't blame you. Perhaps you're not like me, then. You're probably not adrift with us few-ever-so enthusiastically-on Malick's rarefied wavelength.

It's a place in the cinematic space-time continuum chocked full of ever-gliding steadicams, sublime imagery, music sent from the heavens, and an artistic outlook so ambitious and deeply contemplative that, at times, it makes Kubrick's existential pondering in 2001: A Space Odyssey look relatively pedestrian. With To The Wonder, all of these things are again on parade for the docile poet of the cinema. It's everything we've come to expect from Malick: the quiet voice-over narration, contemplative composition, astral visual ramblings. This time, much like in The Tree of Life, he's catering to no one's sentiment but his own, and there's not a damned thing wrong with it. In fact, I welcomed it-even in all of its glorious imperfection. It's a proverbial breath of fresh air before the four month stint of things no moviegoer ever saw coming: one tedious, brainless summer action rehash after another (not, of course, that there's anything wrong with that).

In the opening minutes of the film, we see Neil (Ben Affleck), in France, falling deeply in love with Marina (Olga Kurylenko), and, as they do so, the peculiar mold of the film begins to take shape. As it opens, we see the two of them flirtatiously engaged on a passenger train. Malick sets the stage here by doing what made many sequences in The Tree of Life so impactful and unique: he films them through the filter of a minds' eye, creating the look, feel and experience of memories conjured. For the remaining 110 minutes of the film (Malick's shortest in his four decade long career), we see Neil, Marina, her daughter Tatiana, Father Quintana (Javier Bardem) and Jane (Rachel McAdams) as moments in time-their actions dictated by reflection-just as one would see them in the furthest recesses of their memory.

After falling in love in Paris, Marina decides to move to Oklahoma with Neil. As we move from breathtaking shots of Mont St. Michel to the rolling prairies outside of suburban Oklahoma, the two are shown laughing, caressing one another, dancing, arguing, forgetting. Eventually, Marina grows dissatisfied with Niel's progressing emotional distance. Distraught, she returns to France. Once she's gone, Neil revisits a former romance between himself and Jane, but the flames are quickly fanned after she learns that his motives are strictly lustful in nature. Marina returns after a severe bout of loneliness, only to find that the late night streets of Paris are just as cold and lifeless as the empty cookie cutter homes of suburban Oklahoma. Meanwhile, Father Quintana is struggling with his vocation. He-like Marina and Niel-is finding that his love for the church is slowly abandoning him. He attempts to remedy this vacancy by tending to others in need, but, unshakeable skepticism seems to override his ventures.

So, why does a film with so little going on have so much hubbub surrounding it? As is normal with Malick, it all means, well, many things. Some of them are easily discernible, but some are not. One thing's for certain, though: what is meant to be taken from this film is not its specific occurrences, and, if you approach it with the mindset that actors are haphazardly wandering into an inflated nature documentary from time to time, you'll be maddeningly disappointed (and probably a little bit pissed off). A film becomes what you bring to it, and, as is the understood norm with most of Malick's work, this time you'll need to bring more than your fair share.

Love permeates these people's lives, but indefinable and unexplainable forces seem to control its whys, hows and what fors. Their love is perpetually challenged by actions each of them remain blind to. What these forces/actions are, Malick does not know, and neither do we. Why do Neil's emotions abandon him during his love affair with Marina? Why does he lust after and use Jane? Why does Father Quintana find his lifelong love for the church being challenged in ways he never thought possible? And what of those Quintana attempts to aid? Has love not nourished the poor, permeated the criminals, and flooded the psychologically unstable? What a mysterious and impartial entity nature is.

The Tree of Life is a film that affected me in ways that I still find difficult to articulate. It's beautiful, mesmerizing, and transcendent. Since that film, Malick's work has become increasingly spiritual and introspective. To The Wonder follows in the same vein, but, all of its ambition aside, the outcome feels less substantial and, at times, moderately desultory. This doesn't mean it's a bad film, though, because it certainly is not. However, I suppose that once you make a film as unequivocally aspiring as The Tree of Life, a second, less dense effort will seem automatically "dissatisfying." The bar, in all its elusive glory, has been set high.

Perhaps the growing rumination in Malick's work is tangential to his transition to old age. Is it not true that the closer one gets to death, the more one begins to look inward? Malick has been making films since the early 1970's. The overlying theme tying together every film he has made since his debut feature, Badlands (1973), is how the "insignificance" of man pales in comparison to the unpredictable power of nature. Perhaps, with all of his films (including this one), he's attempting to make sense of the mystical, mysterious cathedral of life as he knows it, and, perhaps... no, not perhaps... surely his cinematic ambitions and achievements will be discovered, rediscovered and marveled over for years to come.

Beautiful shots, gorgeous cinematography accompanied by a classical score and poetic voice-overs are not enough to save this film from it's two main characters who we are not given any reason or way to understand or relate to in the end.

Coming off from "The Tree Of Life" Terrence Malick gives us more sunsets, twirling, poetry, and amazing cinematography and boy do you get a lot of it. The film in a way is like a montage, you get beautiful shots of things happening with soft spoken poetry edited over it. You never get "movie scenes" you get pieces of a scene with a couple or even one line of dialog. It almost reaches its potential of being a scene that drops right before it gets there.

Neil (affleck) meets Marina (Kurylenko) in france, it shows them grasping each other and slowly kissing and moving in close to each other. They then move to Oklahoma where neil has a job, as his job stresses so does his relationship with marina, again this is done using nothing but montage and soft spoken poetry with bits and pieces of dialog. So it gets very dozy and repetitive. While the problems arise and marina's visa expires she is forced back to France. Neil then meets and old friend and begin to intimet, i found myself enjoying Jane McAdams playing this old friend, she kinda is a opposite of marina. She is down to earth and bright while marina seemed to be dark and edgy. My enjoyment then halted when they also started having problems, because neil feels obligated to get back to marina. Jane Mcadams was wasted in this film with only 10 minutes screen time. Marina also has contact with a priest played wonderfully by bardem, he seems to be struggling with faith and love, his voice is often played in the background speaking pieces of a sermon, which seems to be the narrative along with the scattered poetry.

This film or what i would say is a 2 hour montage with bits of pieces of "almost" scenes and scattered poetry had me sometimes attached it sometimes had me feeling for the characters. I could see that it does portray the exploration of love and it depths that it brings and does to people. Most of this pull is done by the amazing visual art the Malick portrays. But this had me feeling melancholy with such repetitive montages and a somber narrative. I know something beautiful is in there. But it left me empty.

Nu are nici un fel de poveste reala, actorii aproape ca nu exista, dar are o imagine superba si niste puneri in scena captivante

Hoy en día muy pocos directores logran mostrar un trabajo fotográfico tan bello como el que nos ofrece Terrence Malick en sus cintas. Y al mismo tiempo también pocos directores tienen un historia tan pobre y carente de mucho sentido en sus creaciones, aunque esto último nos permite una interpretación mucho más libre del mensaje de la película, que aún así no queda muy claro.
La belleza visual de este filme no alcanza a compensar la falta de una buena y atrapante historia.
De cualquier manera, no deja de ser interesante lo que nos presenta Malick.

This film is getting mixed reviews by the critics but I really liked it. I thought it was quite powerful and moving. I also thought that the leading lady, Olga Kurylenko, gave a great performance. Javier Bardem was quite good as the priest. Though in some ways I wish his character had his own film because I would like to have seen more of him. As usual in a Terrence Malick film it has great cinematography. Not as good as THE TREE OF LIFE or THE THIN RED LINE, but still s good film.