| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Christian Bale | ... | Rick | |
| Cate Blanchett | ... | Nancy | |
| Natalie Portman | ... | Elizabeth | |
| Brian Dennehy | ... | Joseph | |
| Antonio Banderas | ... | Tonio | |
| Freida Pinto | ... | Helen | |
| Wes Bentley | ... | Barry | |
| Isabel Lucas | ... | Isabel | |
| Teresa Palmer | ... | Karen | |
| Imogen Poots | ... | Della | |
|
|
Peter Matthiessen | ... | Christopher |
| Armin Mueller-Stahl | ... | Fr. Zeitlinger | |
| Cherry Jones | ... | Ruth | |
| Patrick Whitesell | ... | Agent #1 | |
|
|
Rick Hess | ... | Agent #2 |
Rick is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles, California. While he's successful in his career, his life feels empty. Haunted by the death of one brother and the dire circumstances of the other, he finds temporary solace in the Hollywood excess that defines his existence. Women provide a distraction to the daily pain he must endure, and every encounter that comes his way brings him closer to finding his place in the world. The film is divided into eight chapters (each named after a tarot card, except for the final chapter Freedom), plus a prologue, each loosely based around the central character's relationship with somebody in his life..
I won't mislead anyone. This movie is a tough watch if you don't like movie as a form of art and poetry. This movie requires you to be open-minded, philosophically inclined and love good cinematography and music.
Malick once again put me in a hypnotic state of trance while watching this film. He keeps on going against conventional movie making. His style is hypnotic and gorgeous.
What I took away after and while watching this movie is that it is a observational piece on human behavior. It made me realize how crazy the human race is. The way we enjoy entertainment, treat our women and live our lives. It's all a really surreal thing for a species to do.
Apart from the plot, this movie is mesmerizing and extremely relaxing to watch. The soundtrack is trippy and hypnotic as always and Malick is really settling on a certain (like it or hate it) style of filmmaking. It's very personal whether you like his films or not. To me personally his films are wonderful observational pieces of art that should be stored and preserver for future generations to reflect upon.
His films are also really great material to watch when you're high on psychedelics ;)