Notes on a film

Note: This piece contains plot spoilers.

It’s not the worst flick I’ve seen — in fact, parts of it brought me to tears. But I got over that and lived to regret wasting two plus hours. Am I being too hard on the Terrence Malick film, now playing at the glorious Oriental on Farwell?

What a letdown, but hey, aren’t we almost required to enjoy a movie that asks us to consider the meaning of life? Monty Python did it so much better. I mean when Death comes knocking, the Grim Reaper and I will share a nice dry martini. The basis for all great art is the tension between life and death. All filmmakers are created equal, some are just more equal than others. So where was God when the editing was being done? Somewhere rumbling and grumbling and whispering in the film (what’s that? Speak up. I can’t hear what you’re saying!), we soon re-affirm that Job wasn’t exactly a fun guy, in fact he was a wet sock.

I grew up in the 50s, but not in Texas where the film unfolds. I never knew Brad Pitt could make himself look like a pit bull, but that’s what he did when he thrust his jaw forward in attempt to resemble a tough father and abuser of the little wife. Most curious was his walk, almost like he had a stick up his rear.

Surely that was the point: ramrod straight, no nonsense, man of steel, dad to three boys.

Things hummed along quite beautifully, more or less, until the director decided to add an endlessly overblown digitized segment addressing Creation and how we (perhaps) evolved from slime cast ashore in the Way Back. It was all very Space Odyssey 2001, with swooping shots and boiling waters and things going bump in the ocean. The final straw was the inclusion of sappy looking dinosaurs rambling around up and down. They reminded me of the blow-up plastic dinosaurs from Sinclair gas stations.

My sister saw the film in Kansas City, and she waited in the lobby after the film to ask the ten viewers what they thought of it. All hated the film! Some said, “too long” (it was!), others thought it was a plot by Creationists, a few couldn’t hear the film’s whispered dialogue, while the truly disgruntled demanded their money back. I didn’t go that far because there were enough good moments to (almost) justify my ticket price.

Something is rotten in the State of Denmark when the NewYork Times gives it a rave (they too questioned the dinosaur ploy), and audiences aren’t quite so enthusiastic.

But alas, the dopey dinosaurs weren’t the final straw after all. As I slogged into the second hour, driven along by some gorgeous music but not much else, I began to wonder if Job wasn’t just another grumpy old man with too much time on his hands. I’ll never quite understand why it’s so damn hard for a movie to wrap up neatly and let us all go home, but this one just wouldn’t loosen its death grip. Woody Allen didn’t have that problem did he? Last week I attended Midnight in Paris, also at the Oriental. What a sensational film — also about the meaning of life, but what a difference in the two films!

Near the end (are we there yet?), groups of dearly departed stand on a beach waiting to be welcomed into Heaven. Seagulls of the Jonathan Livingston type sail overhead while angels (white women who appear to be wearing extensions) embrace the chosen. Federico Fellini often used the ocean and beach to grand effect. For Fellini it was a staging area, suggesting both birth and death.

There’s more than a hint of New Age creepiness in the film and even Sean Penn can’t save it, though he looks grimly determined, as does Pitt, so you can bet they have money invested in the project. Someone told me that the New York Times is in bed with the film company, but I can’t confirm same. I’m too tired from climbing The Tree of Life.

Three young charming actors held fast to the role of Pitt’s sons. Beautiful in both face and form, they had enough imperfections to make them believable. They outstripped the adult actors by a country mile.

This is a motley mix of the surreal and the silly, with meat for thought sandwiched in between, but not nearly enough to make a meal. I understood the existential elements, each and every laborious one. To Job I say, “Don’t quit your day job, and if that was you whispering, please desist.”

Pitt attended the University of Missouri and I hear tell his buffed bod danced on table tops at his Sigma Chi frat house. I’m thinking Job would be displeased.