User reviews

Greetings again from the darkness. Director Terrence Malick makes films that typically fall into the "love it or hate it" genre. He has a very loyal group of fans (of which I am one) who appreciate the unique mental and emotional ride that his projects provide. To say that his films are not accessible is understandable. His objective is to challenge you to access your own beliefs and thoughts, rather than the characters in his movies ... they are simply the tools he uses.

Less than two years ago, I was struggling to put thoughts into words after watching Malick's The Tree of Life. Now, in record time for him, he releases another film that is even more impressionistic ... actually abstract is not too strong a description. The usual Malick elements are present - nature, uncomfortable relationships, minimal dialogue, breathtaking photography, and powerful music. Where The Tree of Life focused on Creation and Family, this latest takes on Love and Faith.

Water imagery is a frequent key as we see the personal relationship mimic the changing of the seasons. Neil (Ben Affleck), an American visiting Paris, meets and falls for Marina (Olga Kurylenko), a free-spirited local filled with light and energy. Their love affair moves to the stunning Mont Saint-Michel before settling in the drab plains of Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

It's not surprising that the relationship suffers as the newness wears thin. The interesting part is how Malick presents it. We mostly witness bits and pieces ... he shows us moments, not events. We easily see that Neil's aloofness and sullen looks don't jibe with Marina's effervescence. When she returns to Paris, Neil easily falls in with an old flame played by Rachel McAdams. When she later accuses him of making what they had "nothing", we all understand what she means ... and why.

While Neil is proving what a lost soul he is, we also meet Father Quintana (Javier Bardem). He has lost the light of his faith and is in full crisis mode, even as he attempts to console and guide Marina. There is no secret that much of this film is autobiographical and that Malick is working through wounds he still carries these many years later. As a movie-goer, there is little to be gained from Alleck's disconnected character or from Kurylenko dancing in the rain. The real prize is awakening the thoughts and feelings many of us probably buried over the years to hide emotional pain. Malick seems to be saying that it's OK to acknowledge your foundation, regardless of your ability to succeed in a socially acceptable manner.

If you prefer not to dig so deep emotionally, this is a beautiful film to look at - thanks to Director of Photograpy Emmanuel Lubezki (a frequent Malick collaborator), and listen to - a blended soundtrack with many notable pieces from various composers. While this will be remembered as Roger Ebert's final movie review (he liked it very much), it will likely have very little appeal to the average movie watcher - and I'm confident that Terrence Malick is fine with that.

I am a huge Terrence Malick fan and have loved everything he has done, up until this. This is not a good film. It's drawn out, has a very uninteresting script, and just fails to entertain, stimulate, or do anything really.

It's a two hour wide angle shot of Ben Affleck being in a shitty relationship. Hmm...

That being said, the camera work is pretty great, as is the case with most of Malick's work, but that's pretty much it. There is almost no story to speak of, to even remember as I write this review. The French woman could have gone back home at any time and spared everyone the pain of their crappy relationship. Instead, she decides to draw out what everyone knows is a doomed scenario.

Malick should honestly have retired with the Tree of Life. It was excellent, and utilized the dreamy, wide-angle drawn out sequences very well, unlike here, where they are relied on to make up for a lack of substance.

I don't really recommend this film to anyone. If you are a Malick fan, it will severely diminish your appreciation for him, as it is as pretentious as it is boring.

This movie tries so hard to be beautiful, it hurts. I got a beauty overdose after 20 minutes. The cinematography is so gorgeous, it should be used to teach photography students, especially ultra-wide lens work. There is a lot of beautiful acting by insanely beautiful Olga Kurylenko and then some by beautiful Rachel McAdams, whose character is absolutely unnecessary, by the way. Not much more in terms of acting, though. Even the great Javier Bardem was acting Ben Affleck style - making serious faces and trying not to look stupid. Both extremely beautiful, of course. The score was quite beautiful, too. Other than all that beauty, there was nothing. No plot, no dialogues. Scattered pseudo-spiritual monologues in five languages did not help much, and reading meaningless subtitles distracted me from watching the aforementioned beauty. Bottom line: way too much beauty and zero content. Recommended to aspiring photographers and very patient Olga Kurylenko fans.

If you enjoy seeing a lot of twirling, this is a movie you don't want to miss. The two female leads twirl wherever they are, grocery shopping, walking anywhere, not just on the beach but in grocery stores on casual strolls; and they never get dizzy. These women are every man's dream, Rachael McAdams wears makeup: lipstick, mascara, eyeliner-the whole nine yards, while she's bailing hay. It's amazing. To add to the enjoyment, there's no real plot. At least one you haven't seen before, albeit without the twirling. Olga Kurylenkoand and Ben Afflack never age because, I guess, they walk on the beach a lot while twirling. But eventually, all that twirling gets to them and he gets bored with her and then she gets bored with him and a priest gets bored with god and finally, the viewer gets dizzy watching.

Terrence Malick is placed on a pedestal with very few other directors. His films are like no others I have seen or will ever see and they speak to me in a way no other director can. I claimed his previous film, The Tree Of Life, to be the best film of the decade with 9 years still remaining when it was released in 2011. Nothing has come close to it since. It greatly saddens me to write a review where I am unable to bestow the same praise of Malick's previous five masterpieces on his latest release To The Wonder.

First and foremost, To The Wonder is a greater success than it is a disappointment. The film is never anything other than a triumph of artistic beauty to look at and the 'trademark Malick' shots are ever-present although his camera feels more active and agitated than before and the frequency of edits seem greater than any of this previous films.

The problem with To The Wonder is that, for the first time, we don't care about the characters enough to allow Malick's narrative style to flow freely as it did before. Malick is pushing the boundaries of cinematic narrative to their very limits with this film but without the connection he usually brings so effortlessly to the audience's heart. We find out precious little about the two lovers, Maria (Olga Kurylenko) and Neil (Ben Affleck) and why they are going through their troubles. Moreover, the film is told almost entirely from Maria's viewpoint, leaving Affleck with very little to do and hinders his performance. It seems like Affleck never knows if his scenes will even make it to the final cut whereas Kurylenko is given free rein to act her heart out.

To The Wonder is most comparable with Malick's 2005 masterpiece The New World. The issue here is that when we see Pocahontas running and dancing through the fields and grass we understand her motivation for doing so; she is from another culture, another world, and has met this strange new man from a far away land and is expressing herself in a way Captain Smith has never seen before. In To The Wonder, there appears to be no reason why Maria acts similarly, and the magic Malick creates is for the first time questioned.

One of the major flaws in this film is the decision to have the voice-over of the central character, Marina and supporting character Father Quintana (Javier Bardem) in French and Spanish and subtitled on the screen in English. The intrusion of the subtitles and forcing the audience to look away from the images breaks the connection Malick's use of voice-over has in his films. Take any of his previous five films as examples; the voice-over ghosts through the films and has an omnipotent feeling. Seeing the words on the screen ruins the impact they have in the context of Malick's narrative style and loses the naturalism the words evoke, and is even more frustrating when we hear the characters speak in English to other people.

Around the hour mark, the film feels exhausted and lost in its own beauty, rather than telling a story in a unique way. It's Malick's first film set in the present day (save for the Sean Penn scenes in The Tree Of Life) and the story doesn't feel like it has anything to say, which is a shame because his other works say so much. This film also contains the only footage in his films I wish I could remove. The film opens with dreadful digital video camera footage and I went into something of a panic sat there in my seat... I've just hated something Terrence Malick has shot. Thankfully the footage is never repeated but it's a terrible few scenes. Maybe it's his way of saying man-made metropolis is ugly, but it's an ugly way of starting a beautiful film, regardless of symbolism.

To The Wonder feels like it is in need of an extended cut, adding more to the story and characters than what has been released because I am positive there is more to this film than this theatrical cut; In fact we already know Malick has completely cut out scenes with stars Rachel Weisz, Michael Sheen, Amanda Peet and Barry Pepper. The New World got its much needed extended edition on Blu-ray, and there has been talk of a six hour release of The Tree Of Life; To The Wonder needs this treatment if it is to ever stand up to the masterpieces which we have been privileged to watch up until now.

...wrote French author Victor Hugo and Terrence Malick's "To the Wonder" seems at times to agree and at times wanting disprove that quote. As ancient as the mistake of falling in love appears to be, as unavoidable and necessary it is. In his impressionistic style which will enrapture some and drive most insane, this latest piece of work by one of America's most unusual filmmakers continues his exploration of emotional truths, identity, intimacy and individual freedom which leads us into ever changing emotional states.

Without a clear structure or narrative but accompanied by breathtaking images, a very expressive music and ambient soundtrack and extremely subtle performances, are we drawn into the lives of a business man (Ben Affleck), a Russian expatriate (Olga Kurylenko), the daughter of a farm owner (Rache McAdams) and the priest of a small town in Oklahoma (Javier Bardem). Their thoughts and struggles regarding love, commitment, God and marriage along with their the fights and atonement are presented in fractured moments that reveal the various elements of human contradiction which constantly tear us in two directions at the same time. We want freedom and comfort, love and domesticity, desire and stability. The compromise lies in accepting which side of us is the one that defines us the most and if we can live, at least partly, with the lack of the other, in order to achieve as Bardem's Father Quintana puts it:"The love that never changes."

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.

TO THE WONDER is the new film from master writer/director Terrence Malick. The story begins with Ben Affleck's character, Neil, in Paris where he falls in-love with a single mother named Marina, played by the beautiful Olga Kurylenko. Neil brings his new love and her daughter, Tatiana, back home with him to the United States. When Marina's visa expires and Affleck's character is reluctant to marry her, Marina and her daughter return to Paris. Neil begins spending his time with a childhood friend, Jane, played by Rachel McAdams. However Jane is a woman of great faith, a faith that Neil does not share. Back in Paris, Tatiana leaves to go live with her father and Marina becomes depressed, longing to return to the US to try to work things out with Neil. It is at this point that the story falls apart.

It's impossible not to compare TO THE WONDER to THE TREE OF LIFE simply because the two films are shot in the exact same style. Beautiful shots and gorgeous cinematography accompanied by a classical score and poetic voice-overs from the characters. The Tree of Life was and is not only a masterpiece, but one of the greatest films to ever be made. I thought maybe To The Wonder was a little too soon for another Malick epic but I do not believe that is the case as far as why this film fails.

The two characters I felt for and wanted to see more of was Javier Bardem's Father Quintana and Rachel McAdams' Jane. Here we have a priest struggling in his relationship with God and a woman who has suffered through the grief and loss of a child, yet has found a way to continue living in harmony with great faith. These highly interesting characters are under-used as the film focuses more on Neil and Marina, who by the end of the film, we begin to hate.

The actors do not help the film tell it's story, it almost seems like they walked on-set without a script and improvised their parts. In Tree Of Life we had Jessica Chastain, Sean Penn and Brad Pitt giving the performances of a lifetime, not through dialogue, but simply through facial expression, movement and body language. There wasn't a need for scenes of dialogue, the story was understood. With To The Wonder, I was craving a scene of dialogue towards the end. I didn't want to believe Affleck and Kurylenko's characters were as shallow and selfish as they seemed, I wanted and felt I deserved to know more about them and why they continued to struggle. Why are they so frustrated and angry?

No matter how abstract or convoluted a film is, I've never had an issue coming to some sort of an understanding and usually, the more a film leaves open for me to interpret myself, the more I respect the film. However, To The Wonder leaves us with two characters we no longer have any reason to care for and the film gives us no way to understand or relate to them in the end.

Some people say that film is like a language, but that is not exactly right, it is like language itself, and just as there are different languages, there are different cinemas. It seems to me that, in his last two films, Terrence Malick has been creating a very special type of cinema, that had hitherto existed only in an embryonic form. While most films have maybe 50-100 scenes, replete with dialogue and action, Malick's new cinema (MNC) has over twice that number of scenes, but they are fragmentary and consist of only the essence of meaning that was in a scene that would normally have been much longer. This can be sometimes several minutes or only a couple of brief shots.

Last evening I drove the 25 miles to see the early performance of 'To the Wonder'. I did that with the intention of returning to write this review while the film was still fresh in my mind. But after it I was so drained that I couldn't write a summary, let alone a review. At the current (late) stage in my life, what interests me most about the cinema is its limits. How far can the cinema go, and what exactly is a film?

Given the above, Terrence Malick is evidently the man for me, and I am convinced that 'The Tree of Life' is among the five greatest works of this greatest of the arts. So, after a masterpiece 30 years in the gestation and three + in the creation, how would Malick fare with a film relatively thrown together in a year or so?

On the face of it, this is a story of the relationship which starts in Paris between an American (environmentalist?), Neil, and an otherworldly French woman (Marina). When they return to mid-west America, Marina suffers from a sense of dislocation made greater when he daughter decides to go and live with her father in France.

But Malick seems much less interested in the *events* which he depicts than in expressing the feelings of the characters. Just the same way that 'The Tree of Life' was an *impression* of childhood, rather than the story of a childhood, 'To the Wonder' is an impression of a love affair, rather than its story. This is cinema infused in every shot with Heidegger's *dasein*. The logic of Malick's cinema is to *perfectly* catch the moment, and in doing so extract the truth of the experience. Hence, for Malick, a film story, is simply an assembly of 'essences'. These essences stay in the mind to thrill and haunt us.

There have been other examples of great filmmakers who have made films exploring the cinema's intimate connection with mental processes - Resnais and Bunuel come immediately to mind. But with Malick, it seems, the cinema's similarity to the mental processes of memory, dream and conjecture, have ignited a wildfire of creativity that has advanced the film art at a greater pace than has occurred since the sixties.

Here I have to admit to being only at the beginning of being able to appreciate what seems to be dizzying complexities in the film. My French is not up to totally understanding much of Marina's dialogue which, as I am in France, was not translated in the subtitles, so I am sure I have missed an entire dimension of the film. But Olga Kurylenko's performance is so magnificent, that this 'comprehension gap' didn't seem a problem.

Then there is the obvious question of the film's theme. Love, the very 'different' nature of women, dislocation in the physical, emotional and cultural senses - these are all up there writ large. But they are mixed with a nagging worry that, to return to my earlier concern, Malick has stretched the cinema to its limits, but sometimes, maybe beyond them. I do not think of myself as stupid, but I found great difficulty in grasping the relevance of certain shots or scenes. I rest convinced, however that this is another example of a film that it is necessary to watch dozens of times to find all of the poetic and meaningful connections.

I have great sympathy with those who go to the cinema wanting to be told a great story in the clearest manner possible. That is honourable and reasonable, but it is not the only experience that the cinema, this great and wonderful art of the cinema, can give. And it is certainly NOT the case that films that don't take the more prosaic approach are pretentious, meaningless or boring. 'To the Wonder' is to popular cinema what lyric poetry is to airport novels. So, if that is all you are looking for, it is best to avoid Malick's film.

But for those of us who know that beyond the sky is the limit for great cinema, Malick and MNC is the route to the stars, and 'To the Wonder' is a step, if a somewhat halting one, along that route.

If you thought Malicks last outing (Tree of life) was weird and couldn't get a grasp on that, then let me tell you, this won't be for you. Tree of life looks a straight/linear story compared to this. If you like movies that dare to experiment a bit, than get a taste, because Malick is a terrific filmmaker. And with a cast that goes all the way for him, you have a strange mix, that is hard to describe.

Moments of Zen are followed by moments of outrage. Not often loud ones mind you, but subtle ones as well. The movie feels like being taken from memories of someone reliving their lives and thinking what could've been different and what other choices they could've made. Olga Kurylenko gives a powerhouse performance, to a character that might otherwise feel a bit clichéd (especially the outbursts). All the others are more or less support, though Ben Affleck has a bigger part in this as well, but still working as a piece of Kurylenkos character arc/story.

Not easy and hard to watch through, it's up to the viewers taste what they'll make of it

I have always wondered about people who give one star reviews. Is it for the extra attention? Is it a joke? Can a movie really deserve one star?

Well finally I have seen a movie which simply does not permit me to give it any more than one star. A movie that has prompted me to create an IMDb account and write this review so that other cinema goers do not have to share the mind numbing agony of my experience.

My woes stem from the fact that "To the Wonder" seems to be an experiment into expressing nothing but the emotions of love and loss. Initially this seems a noble cause, but it comes at the expense of plot, dialogue and even character development. So if you sit through the first 30 minutes thinking "I wonder if anything is going to happen?", sadly the answer is "no".

There seems to be the assumption that an audience can share in the on screen emotion without ever being given access to the motivations and events which led to them. It is like watching The English Patient and trying to understand Ralph Fiennes' emotional turmoil without being shown the flashbacks of his life before hospital. So without any narrative or dialogue, the poor actors are left trying to convey their emotions by looking gloomy (as Ben Affleck does for the entire movie) or by performing pirouettes and looking wistfully into glinting autumn sunshine (for Olga Kurylenko).

If you are a huge fan of the back of Ben Affleck's head, you'll love this movie. For me the only enjoyment was in the irony that a film about emotion should be so emotionally uninvolving. That and the joy of seeing the end credits finally roll, upon which I punched the air and shouted "Yes!" This is something I have never felt the need to do before in a cinema, and it certainly surprised my wife (who looked mortified). I didn't care. This film marked a new found level of tedium, so extreme that it should probably be reserved for Guantanamo Bay. One star tedium? You bet.

This film is about a man's turbulent relationship with a French woman, complicated by a childhood sweetheart he re-acquaints.

"To The Wonder" is a slow moving film with somewhat a plot, but not one that I understand. It tells how Neil meets Marina in France, then they move to the States. Marina is unhappy there and moves back to France. Somehow Marina moves back to the States to rekindle the relationship. That's what I got from the film, but the scenes are too random to really understand what is happening. There is a scene of Marina attempting overdose, then the next scene shows Marina kissing Neil's feet. Now just what exactly is happening? Even Rachel McAdams, the queen of romantic films, could not save this randomness. Her saccharine persona is truncated by scenes of crop fields and animals grazing. Actually, those romantic scenes of them frolicking in the fields concentrates more on the crops and animals.

"To The Wonder" is surely more accessible than "The Tree of Life", but it is still not so accessible to the general public.

This is an "experimental film", meaning you will not get it. Sorry to be blunt, but in a film in which each scene feels imbued with deeper meaning, this movie leaves you with no meaning whatsoever. If you subscribe to the theory that life is a string of consequential events separated by insignificant pauses, To the Wonder seems to try to remove the pauses and just construct a narrative from the meaningful moments, the emotional ones, not what was said, but what was felt, how the world felt and looked and maybe smelled. It is an interesting technique, but it ultimately leads nowhere. Some people derived satisfaction from watching the film mostly because they felt some reflection in characters of the movie, but it could only have been that, because the film provides almost no narrative structure, just a string of pearls from which you can understand anything.

Olga Kurylenko looked absolutely smashing in this, but the obsession of the film to show her playfully running, dancing, laughing while being drenched from a water hose, lying in the grass and lasciviously stretching like a cat in the sun felt like a tired cliché. And when Rachel McAdams' character did the same it really became one.

Bottom line: it was a decent try, but an ultimately unsatisfying one. There was almost no benefit from having celebrity actors playing in this, since there is almost no dialogue. It's a "bring your own meaning" kind of thing.

Terence Malick surprises everyone with a new release of romantic drama within two years from his previous film Tree of Life, an epitome of Malick's cosmic fixations, whereas this film can be called as a younger sibling to it. 'To the Wonder' is a courageous movie presenting beautiful images as Terence's film always does, with subject matter concerned with love and God and consequences of absence of either. Malick's visual majestic language involves the prudent style of whispered narrative, an overwhelming orchestral score and circling camera-work along with silent outdoor memory sequences across sunsets evoking the hidden emotions of the characters.

We also see memories from two intense but ultimately inharmonious relationships which take the voice-over techniques, with some of the aspects of the story involving a foreign wife and an encounter with a previously known woman are said to be autobiographical for Malick. The majestic nature shots are signposts for his spiritual obsessions with most dramatic image of the movie captures Neil and his former girlfriend in the middle of a bright green field surrounded by buffalo, a prominent portrait of the American dream that cohesively connects to the context of the narrative.

Olga Kurylenko portrays great skills in playing Marina, has a dominating presence with Ben Affleck and Rachael Mcadams giving a convincing performance.The movie is visually ravishing and there is a spellbinding quality to the cutting style, creating a unique ambiance to every frame. Marina's life is in a constant state of change but the film encompasses its holy beauty in the hidden rhythmic structure which resembles the ever-changing seasons, diverse emotions and conflict within relationships due to difficulty in sustaining love and faith.

For complete review which may contain some spoilers(no major plot details) visit our website..!!

Neil (Ben Affleck) falls for Marina (Olga Kurylenko) in Paris while traveling in Europe. He brings her and her daughter Tatiana to his home in Oklahoma. Marina feels isolated in the suburban existence and Neil reconnects with childhood love horse rancher Jane (Rachel McAdams). While Marina is back in Paris, Neil starts a romance with Jane. Marina is lost in Paris and returns to marry Neil. Meanwhile local priest Father Quintana (Javier Bardem) is struggling with his faith.

Terrence Malick knows how to shoot a beautiful shot. Every scene is a thing of beauty. Even the suburban sameness has a fascinating look. The scenes have a flowing feel to them. However, most of the movie is a low tension affair. There are a couple of dramatic scenes but this is not a movie of intensity. Honestly Rachel McAdams is beyond beautiful. She is electric. I think the movie would work better with her as Marina. No offense to Olga, but Rachel is the better actress.

Like other reviewers, I am not opposed to alternative ways of telling a story. Less dialog, more imagery and more music is fine. But you still have to fill in some details. This one doesn't.

Why do reviewers keep saying that the woman was a Russian expatriate in Paris? Because the actress is Ukranian? I didn't catch any dialog explaining that she was anything other than French. Why do they keep saying that the second part of the movie was in Bartlesville, Oklahoma? I never heard any mention of the state or the town. I understand that it was filmed there, but the movie didn't tell me anything about it.

What the hell was the guy doing in Paris? What is wrong with the woman? She seems a little bit retarded. She keeps twirling around in circles like she is not fully engaged in the reality of life. Is it because she is a bohemian, Parisian existentialist poet, or just immature, or what? What does the guy do for a living? He seems to take samples of pond water and weeds. Is he doing the geological survey for a building project? There are no normal conversations in this film. Much of it is whispered in French, with subtitles about the mystery of love and loneliness. After the pretentious and petulant non-French, French woman leaves the film for a bit, Rachel Adams emerges with no makeup. Then she too begins whispering about the nature of love and loss.

Javier Bardem has a compelling screen presence in most of his work and in this one he looks troubled and pensive. I would have loved to find out more about this character's life. A priest in a small town might feel very lonely.

I do understand that the Director and Writer are trying to show lonely, lost souls and make some statement about how we are all looking to connect to something... be it a city, a romance, God, or a poetic version of life. But I can't watch that for 90 minutes without going stark raving mad.

Yes, the cinematography was nice. I liked that the annoying French girl actually said that she was sick of Paris. Film makers love to portray Paris as the Garden of Eden, but it is not a coastal city. It gets gloomy and cold, and there are loads of angry ethnics on fixed incomes.

I actually think the semi-porn "Nine Songs" does a bit better job of showing the initial obsession of a love affair and the ugly decline when boredom and routine set in with immature, shallow people.

Stay away.

Visiting the world of Terrence Malick in many ways must be differentiated from 'watching a movie' and that is likely one of the reasons there are so many honest people who love movies who find IN THE WONDER a major disappointment, 'a mess', 'not a movie' and other responses. That Terrence Malick has a gift of blending film and thought and philosophy and music and silence into a meditation on his views of life, of love, of the human condition is a given. The 'story' is nonlinear, given in bits an pieces like the momentary light fireflies offer in Oklahoma nights or the strains of themes from the classical music with which he bathes his quiet moments, themes that begin, echo, go nowhere, and is about those very personal responses to life as it happens to us or as we perceive it has a meaning, a direction, a connection to God.

In view of that it seems a bit odd that Magnolia pictures offers a synopsis of the 'plot' and that should be shared here: '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 (Tatiana Chiine) 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.'

It is possible to give each of these basically silent (voice over) characters an interpretation but instead it feels as though Malick is simply watching four people respond to the world as it affects interpersonal relationships. Father Quintana, in his painful sadness at trying to find the light that God once provided him to nurture his fellow man, appears be whispering that the reason for our breakups, for our fragmented lives and relationships, is that we can no longer see God. If we could, we would be whole again. Yet even this concept seems less important than every person in the presence of this film finding his/her own meaning: Malick seems to be providing that privacy, that distancing from making his 'characters' fully credible that allows each of them to become part of our own longings and angst and faith that somewhere, sometime this will all make sense - if it is supposed to.

The cinematography is provided by Emmanuel Lubezki and the musical score is attributed to Hanan Townsend: there should be mention of the use of themes from classical composers - Wagner's Parsifal themes and Henryk Górecki's symphonic music being the two most often used. But in the end this is a Terrence Malick meditation, and as such it is the way he combines the images, the light, the locations, the music and the actors to make us ponder.

Grady Harp

To the wonder is probably a very suitable title since it will automatically raise the question: to which wonder, or, to the wonder where? Ultimately, this is a study of the wonder of love. Inexplicable, sometimes simple, often complicated but nonetheless part of our genetic engineering.

We follow the ups and downs of two people who cannot be together but cannot be apart. Their bond is great, the chemistry is there but serious problems arise. They meet in France, move to America, girl goes back to France and returns again.

What is it going to be then? Together or apart? In this journey, they encounter a priest who faces his own existential struggles and very passionately seeks God to guide him in his pastoral duties.

The great thing about "To the wonder" is how it speaks to us through silence. The beautiful imagery of Paris and rural America effectively reveal the happiness or loneliness of the main characters. This is Ben Affleck's greatest role as he is though a leading man is almost totally silent. If a picture is indeed a thousand words and with such beautiful cinematography, who needs dialogue? The use of French language for the most part adds a European elegance to this very American film.

An utterly emotive experience, this is a film that requires you to let go and undertake a journey filled with beauty, love and worthwhile sadness.

Can't understand what the point is. Maybe only beautiful landscapes? Even me, a big fan of Ben Affleck, it's unbearable to watch this without fast-forwarding some scenes. If you're going to watch this, I strongly recommend to spend your time on other movies. Seriously.