The Tree Of Life vs Hereafter

Before The Tree Of Life, one of the theater employees (You know the one—slicked back hair, knuckle tats, bolo tie? Let’s call him Eddie.) came out to talk to the audience. He warned that much of The Tree Of Life is silent, and that the dialogue is often whispered. He said it’s an art film, visually exquisite, and that it requires full audience attention, participation and respect. Phones off, trips out to a minimum, give it twenty minutes before asking for a refund. I wonder if he’d be willing to do that before every movie I see, forever?

And in case you were wondering, he was right. The Tree Of Life is a startling, beautiful movie, and yes, it requires your undivided attention. It uses the small, insular story of a small American family in the 1950s to distill the story of the entire universe; and then it does the reverse. What The Thin Red Line did for war, The Tree Of Life does for…people. Director Terrance Malick has made his most visually compelling film, and certainly his most confounding (I was glued to the screen, but the theater employee warned of walk-outs because they’re to be expected). There are images and sequences from The Tree Of Life that could be edited into any of Malick’s previous films, and others that would stand alone as a short.

Brad Pitt is Mr. O’Brien, a salesman, husband and father. He’s strict with his boys, but not unfair, really, and loving in his way. I think he’s mistakenly being profiled as a bad parent, by both film critics and his kids. He can be cold, and he’s got a bad temper, but he’s doing his best to make sure his boys grow into men, and sacrificing a bit of their opinion of him in the process. Pitt, like every actor in the film, has little dialogue, but doesn’t need it. Pitt, for a huge movie star, remains somewhat underrated. The amount of films not part of a franchise gets smaller every year, and Brad Pitt, interestingly, seems to avoid them comfortably. Pitt’s peers Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr. are unable to say the same.

Making an even bigger impact is Jessica Chastain, as Mrs. O’Brien (I think they’re only referred to in the movie as Mother and Father). She’s everything to her children; not just a mother, but a friend, confidant and protector. She’s often viewed by her children as almost otherworldly and angelic, like Cate Blanchett in Lord Of The Rings, glowing a little brighter than the other characters. When Mr. O’Brien’s gone on business, the mood lightens. Mrs. O’Brien feels the pressure the boys feel, to be stronger, tougher, smarter, and understands that often that all just feels like meaner, especially to those sensitively questioning their place in the world. Hunter McCracken and Sean Penn share the role of Jack, the most thoughtful and rebellious of the boys. Penn, of course, plays Jack in the future, although it’s unclear how far into the future. They’re both good, although McCracken is given the central narration and arc of the film (his characters evolution is the film’s most dramatic, which is saying something, considering actual evolution plays such a big part). Penn is tasked with walking around, looking out of windows, and doing one of those movie jobs in which riding the elevator up to your office is the most exertion you experience in your day.

It might seem like the Penn years and McCracken years bookend The Tree Of Life, but there is another timeline at play, one grander, visually explosive, experimental, mostly silent, and so ostentatious it passes pretentious and lands firmly on statement. It’s ridiculous and beautiful. It’s the stuff you’ll be talking about after The Tree Of Life. Amazingly, no one talked during. Thanks, Eddie.

Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter also tackles the nature of existence and humanity’s place in the universe. But instead of countering the universal with the personal, the connections between lives is driven home with heavy coincidences and characters telegraphing the Big Questions. The acting and cinematography resonate, but the story is too much of a construct, completely dependent on the parts of the screenplay lining up just so. In a movie like Inception, the puzzle pieces locking together is a requirement. In an all-roads-all-souls movie like, say, Magnolia, discovering the coincidences from the audience while the characters stay in the dark is part of the magic. In Hereafter, the characters (as international as those in Babel) aren’t connected, but forced into meeting by nothing so much as the wheels of a screenplay. Clint Eastwood is a famously laid-back director, but for Hereafter to work, he’s forced to work parts of it like a puppeteer. The Tree Of Life makes no bones about its director being the star. Hereafter goes for character piece, and with the clock ticking, Eastwood has to work the strings.

Marie (Celile De France) is a reporter almost killed in a tsunami (a terrifying, flawlessly depicted tsunami that actually does kill her for a moment). George (Matt Damon) is a clairvoyant in the John Edward mode, able to speak with the dead. Marcus (George McLaren) is a boy whose brother has died. A character who’s come back from the dead, a character who can talk to the dead, and a character lost in the world after the death of a loved one? Geography separates them, but you’ll see the connections a mile away.

Hereafter is saved by Eastwood’s no-nonsense approach with his actors, who are stellar across the board. Celile De France’s Marie is luminous and intelligent, like if Annette Bening were one of Pedro Almodovar’s girls. Matt Damon is good, as he so often is, but with a character that’s not a genius or rolled-up-magazine assassin, he seems all the more impressive. The little British kid does what little British kids do in movies, which is: make you cry. Damon gets the most time for subplots, with a potential girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), and a shady brother (Jay Mohr).

The Tree Of Life ultimately succeeds over Hereafter because its characters, living completely on faith, ask questions of their universe based on curiosity and naïveté. Hereafter’s characters have hard proof of what the universe has in store, but remain cynical and doubting. They need more reassurance, when they’re the ones who could be comforting others in need. Eddie should have come in at the beginning and explained the rules.

The Tree Of Life: A

Hereafter: B-