The Tree of Life - A Movie Review

Today is another review of a movie watched by Suey and I. For those that missed it, we started with the BBC mini-series Sherlock Holmes and watched the first season. You can read my part of the discussion by clicking here. Then, we decided we should do it again and I suggested we try Midnight in Paris because I had been seeing it mentioned around the blogosphere. You can read my thoughts on the movie here. For this time around, Suey suggested The Tree of Life. You can read my answers to her questions below and be sure to head over to her blog to read her answers to my questions.


1. Did you have any expectations for this movie? If so, did it turn out like you expected?
- I really had no expectations for this movie. I had never even heard of it before, but you suggested it and I didn't have any reason to not watch it. I did glance at a synopsis when we were discussing when to watch it, but that was as far as I went. I find the synopsis makes this movie sound so simple, but it is much more complicated.

2. What do you think "the point" was of this movie? What were we supposed to learn, if anything?
Well, before I watched the movie I thought it was about a boy whose brother dies and he suffers from loss of innocence. But, I still didn't really get what happened to the boy. I also never really saw the loss of innocence because when the children were young there were always the three of them. It wasn't until he was old that you see him alone (played by Sean Penn) and I didn't really get it all. Instead, it is one of those movies where there is a lot of imagery is used to tell a story. I always tell people I am a bread and butter reader when it comes to storyline. I would much rather have everything laid out straight, with a few mysteries being fine, but not a story where you basically have to guess what happened.

3. What were your favorite parts, if any.
I do agree with people who say this is a 'pretty' movie. It might not have made sense a lot of the time, but at least those moments were nice to look at.

4. In the end, are you glad or bugged that we took the time to watch it? :)
Well, the entire experience started out interesting. We were watching through my computer because the Blu-Ray player is driving me nuts (turns out we have a loose cord). So, I push play and we sit there... No sound. And, the movie starts with some of those imagery moments, so I have to admit between the sound and the strange pictures on the screen that I thought the movie was entirely ruined. When I figured out that someone muted my sound and that those pictures were actually part of the movie, I got a bit scared. I actually am glad we watched it. The Twitter conversation was fun, the random commentary from the guy in the background was entertaining, and it is much easier to write this review than say the one for Midnight in Paris because that was a gushing positive experience.

5. What movie did 'the guy' watch after this one, and did it help ease the pain?
Yeah, he hated this movie. He had some colourful things to say the entire time. So, he decided he was going to stay up and watch another movie. For reasons that I am not quite sure, he chose Mona Lisa's Smile and he didn't like it. So, no, he just had a bad movie night all around.

6. Would you recommend this to anyone?
I think people that like artistic movies would probably like this one. I just don't really like artistic movies myself...

Don't forget to visit Suey's post! I believe that our next viewing experience will be The Help. I have seen it, but Suey has not. We have both read the book, though. Tune in soon to see our thoughts on the experience!