At first I did not realize it was Malick, and after a few minutes I thought, "Terence Malick wannabe." Then I read the credits. Oh. Oops. It's sad when a brilliant director looks like a wannabe of himself.
After half an hour of watching Rooney Mara drift aimlessly across whatever scenery she was in, wearing the exact same expression no matter what, looking too sensitive to live, wafting this way and that without purpose or intention, drooping over balconies and at windows and in chairs, ducking her head as if expecting to be smacked, avoiding eye contact, clutching a strand of hair to her lips, casting doe eyes at everyone from passers-by to her own father, as the camera swoops and swivels, I gave up.
I like Malick, I loved some of his earlier movies, as incoherent as some of them have been. But this was just annoying. I wanted to smack her. You have these great actors floating aimlessly through a completely untethered series of images and scenes with annoyingly and pointlessly restless cameras and random cuts to other equally random scenes. I could not even begin to give a spoiler alert, for that would imply that there is a plot, or a story, or a thread of narrative, however tenuous.
After half an hour of watching Rooney Mara drift aimlessly across whatever scenery she was in, wearing the exact same expression no matter what, looking too sensitive to live, wafting this way and that without purpose or intention, drooping over balconies and at windows and in chairs, ducking her head as if expecting to be smacked, avoiding eye contact, clutching a strand of hair to her lips, casting doe eyes at everyone from passers-by to her own father, as the camera swoops and swivels, I gave up.
I like Malick, I loved some of his earlier movies, as incoherent as some of them have been. But this was just annoying. I wanted to smack her. You have these great actors floating aimlessly through a completely untethered series of images and scenes with annoyingly and pointlessly restless cameras and random cuts to other equally random scenes. I could not even begin to give a spoiler alert, for that would imply that there is a plot, or a story, or a thread of narrative, however tenuous.