The Fountain has run dry

Rating: 4/10 (3 June 2015)

This is an almost 10-year-old movie written and directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz (Aronofsky's fiancée at that point, she won an Oscar right before that). It only runs for 90 minutes (without the credits) and thus is one of his shortest works. Also it came short in terms of quality compared to what else he did in the last 20 years, possibly the director's weakest effort. I am a huge fan of Hugh Jackman, so it's a bit disappointing to see this did not work out as well as Aronofsky's projects with Burstyn, Rourke and Portman. "The Fountain" is nice to watch and visually appealing (sometimes a bit pretentious though) from an aesthetic perspective and also has a good (Golden Globe nominated) soundtrack from Aronofsky's frequent collaborator Mansell, so this film probably works infinitely better on a large theater screen than on your small computer. However, the story in here never really got me engaged, let alone fascinated me. For all I care, they simply could have kept this at the present without digging into the book that Weisz' character wrote. Aronofsky's other film also usually depict characters who are walking the fine line between sanity and insanity and they could have centered this around this whole premise of Jackman's character (a brilliant doctor) facing the mortality of his beloved wife. However, in terms of the script they actually came up with, making this one work is almost as difficult as finding a cure to cancer. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend watching this film. In terms of Jackman, I easily prefer his other 2006 movie "The Prestige".