This Tree of Life Would Be Put to Better Use as Firewood

Rating: 1/10 (5 August 2007)

The only compliment I can pay "The Fountain" is that it's not ordinary. However, a little ordinariness might have helped this nearly unwatchable mess of a movie.
Darren Aronofsky has made a cerebral, abstract film completely lacking any ounce of emotional significance. It comes across as one of those films that one person had too much control of. I can't believe for a second that there weren't people around Aronofsky who thought this movie was completely indigestible bilge; unfortunately, none of them had the balls to tell him so.
In "The Fountain," Hugh Jackman plays some sort of doctor in the near future who is engaged in research to slow the aging process (or something -- I was never entirely clear on this point). His wife (Rachel Weisz, a long way away from "The Constant Gardener") is dying of a brain tumor, and curing her with these new but unperfected methods becomes an obsession of Jackman's. Meanwhile, she has written a book about a Spanish Conquistador during the inquisitions (Jackman again) who is sent by Queen Isabella (Weisz again) to find the famed tree of life. And as if that weren't enough, another version of Jackman (this one bald, looking like a cross between Kevin Spacey and Dr. Evil) floats around space in a big bubble with said tree of life (which I think we are meant to think at this point is Weisz in her immortal form) pausing occasionally to break off pieces of its bark to eat.
All of this is treated with utmost seriousness and earnestness, and the results are ridiculous. The tone of the film is one of unrelenting gloom, with sombre music and muted line readings. Jackman is not nearly a capable enough actor to handle this role, though to be fair, I don't know that anyone else would be either. He mostly just looks sad and harried, and the only difference between any of the incarnations of him is in how much hair he has on his head and face (there's the hairy Jackman, the moderately hairy Jackman and the shaved Jackman). Weisz mostly floats around in a stranded role as no more than something for Jackman to respond to. Arronofsky apparently was able to convince both of them to take this nonsense seriously, and the results are simply embarrassing at times. My wife and I laughed out loud more than once, and trust me, nothing in this movie was meant to be funny. But the climax, in which the Conquistador begins to gobble sap from the tree of life, only to have flowers erupt from all of his bodily orifices, is a tour de force of unintentional screen comedy.
Ellen Burstyn inexplicably shows up in a small role as Jackman's boss. I have to believe she only agreed to do so as a favor to Aronofsky for giving her such a good role in his "Requiem for a Dream."
Grade: F