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Created Jun 24, 2011 05:59PM PST • Edited Apr 14, 2018 01:56AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Deeply affecting, Terrence Malick’s ultimate family drama omnisciently observes a nearly idyllic household afflicted by two bolts of tragedy. Love, marriage, birth, death, and all the hoods – fatherhood, motherhood, brotherhood, childhood, adulthood, neighborhood – get touched upon in the process.

   The legendary Malick’s fifth movie in 40 years confidently traipses through the quotidian life of an early-60s West Texas family, then zooms to the cosmos, then to the dinosaurs (yes, there are dinosaurs and they’re as wondrous as any in Jurassic Park), then returns to the backyard of an American boyhood in the time before everything got complicated. It’s an often dizzying but consistently rewarding trip.

   Brad Pitt’s monumental performance as a Greatest Generation father anchors the movie, which otherwise would fly off in its many directions: his wife and sons’ Wendy and the Lost Boys relationship; the dinosaur era of his Waco homeland; his sole surviving son haunted as a grown man.

   The Tree of Life deserves its acclaim, including the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year. Complex and messy, like families and life, it is quite simply a masterpiece.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Stillness becomes Pitt, whose performance is literally monumental, his blockhead and imposing presence creating a sense of barely harnessed power. Once again, Brad the prettyboy superstar proves himself a movie actor of the highest caliber.

   Jessica Chastain’s performance as wife and mother doesn’t match Pitt’s, but then that is probably an unreachable standard.

   Sean Penn also stills his usual energy as their grown son. His performance shows with just a glance the inner workings of a deeply troubled man. For instance, notice how he whips his head around to ogle a woman in his office.

   Young newcomers Hunter McCracken, Laramie Eppler and Tye Sheridan are wonderfully natural playing the sons as boys. McCracken, in particular, is outstanding.

   Amongst the dozens of cameo performers, Fiona Shaw stands out as the boy’s grandmother.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    Malick has delivered Film School perfection. Deeply impressionistic, it rarely stays with a scene or character for more than a moment, glancing in and out of life at its most quotidian and most massive. Wow.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Really Great 4.5

    Is Pitt’s character a bad Father? No, he’s a real Father from the Greatest Generation era, doing right as he sees it, making his way in a tough world, and toughening up his boys to do the same. Larger-than-life himself, his boys are hardly chips off the old block, especially the eldest.

    Poppa Pitt, with his big square head, tight hair, huge hands, big car and big job is a hell of a block to be chipped off of. Hell, the guy’s got the whole shooting match.

    The film also does a great job of conveying a time when boys saw many men as fearsome tyrants in homes around town.

13. Music Really Great 4.5

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    The adult Jack exists in sleekly impersonal office towers and luxury homes, in stark contrast to the human scale settings of his youth.

    Speaking of his youth, anyone alive in the 60s will resonate to how well the details of the era are recreated.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.0

    The deaths occur off-screen, but the movie conveys a sense of menace in the heart of a family.

17. Sex Innocent 1.5

18. Violence Fierce 1.8

19. Rudeness Profane 2.6

21. Reality

    Natural 1.0

    The pre-history scenes appear all natural, but there is no way to know if or whether they occurred as Malick and his movie magicians depict them.

    Suicide – the movie’s toughest topic – is against the law in most religions. The Tree of Life shows why: for the suicide, life ends; for the family left behind, a lifetime of grieving begins. Thus suicide is a profoundly selfish act, worthy of religious proscription.

22. Circumstantial Natural 1.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0