What a mess

Rating: 3/10 (11 January 2008)

The Fountain is one of those movies which when you say you didn't like it those who did like it get very pretentious and say "Well you just didn't get it". No, I got it. And I hated it. It's nonsensical, interminable and in the end quite laughable. Just an absolute mess. This film spends 96 minutes (and it seems infinitely longer) beating you over the head with how important it is. Writer/director Darren Aronofsky is apparently very concerned with getting across his point about life and death and the meaning of it all. Maybe there is a powerful message in here somewhere. Too bad the message is stuck in such a terrible movie.
Trying to unravel the plot here is really a waste of time. Suffice to say it's a lot simpler than it seems. Really it's not that hard to "get it". Unfortunately even if you understand exactly what's going on here that surely doesn't mean you'll like the film. Aronofsky takes a pretty simple story and tries to jazz it up with all kinds of special effects and fantasies. But it just doesn't work at all. Really all this film is about is a man not wanting his wife to die. That's it. All the existential mumbo-jumbo surrounding that basic story ends up falling flat. Aronofsky was apparently so concerned with making a statement that he failed to notice he was making a very bad movie. Anything nice to say? Well, many of the visuals are stunning. That's something I guess. But pretty visuals can't hide the failings of the story. Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz have in other films proved themselves to be fine performers but they've got nothing to work with here. It was an admittedly intriguing concept and ambitious effort from Aronofsky but he couldn't pull it off. The film can best be summed up by one moment near the end. After being so darned serious, so determined to get its message across you figure at least the movie must be building to an eye-opening, thought-provoking, wondrous climax. Instead you get one of the most laughable moments in film history, a moment so bad you may well find yourself throwing things at the screen. I won't spoil it here, you'll know it when you see it. It's a moment which sums up the film itself as it's meant to be painfully serious but is unintentionally hilarious. At this point you'll certainly be laughing at the filmmaker, not with him. Give credit to Aronofsky for thinking outside the box (way, way outside the box) but the sad truth is his movie fails miserably.