TO THE WONDER

TO THE WONDER Review

By Darin Skaggs

     Director Terrence Mallick is best known for, besides making beautiful poetic films, taking long breaks between movies.  His debut film Badlands came out in 1973.  Five years later he came out with Days of Heaven in 1978.  Then he waited a whopping twenty years for his next film in 1998 called The Thin Red Line.  Seven years later his 2005 film The New World, came out which was preceded by his 2011 film The Tree of Life six years later.  All that said Mallick is not a very consistent filmmaker.  Yet his new film To The Wonder has come out only two years after his last and it both strengthens and suffers the piece.

     If you saw Mallick’s last film, The Tree of Life you would know that the film does not have much of a plot, not much character development and some random scenes with dinosaurs and the creation of the universe.  His new film somehow has even less character development, nearly no story or plot and is merely an exploration of love.

     The film stars, if you can call it that, Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko as Neil and Mirina who play a couple who falls in love. There are bits of dialogue here and there.  If you’re paying attention you can understand what is going on with the couple.  It often goes back and forth between childlike playfulness where the couple is clearly enjoying themselves and scenes where the two fight so bad they make Mirina’s daughter want to go back to her real father and others where they break things and scream.

     The film is about love through and through.  It is about marriage, sex, dating, lust, one night stands and even the love of God.  A different character named Father Quintana played by Javier Bardem is shown throughout the film preaching at his church, fellowshipping with his church members, preforming weddings and blessing the local townspeople.  He seems to have, while not completely abandoning his faith, been struggling with God for a while.  He still tells people to stick with God and God is the answer to their problems but does not totally believe it.  Much like Neil and Mirina, Father Quintana sometimes has faith like a child for God and other times fights with His very existence.

     The film like all of Mallick’s is extraordinarily beautiful.  This one has no scene cutting to a dinosaur or locus jumping around in a fire filled field.  This might be his most down to earth film exploring a theme everyone struggles with, love.  This film is not for everyone but if you love Mallick or even film, this is a must see.