Life, death, love, I'm okay with those things

Rating: 6/10 (15 December 2006)

"Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world."
I confess myself not a fan of Aronofsky, and this ambitious excursion into sci-fi metaphysics does nothing to banish my previous annoyance at his muddy avant-gardism (Pi) and his simpleminded tract on drugs that unaccountably was greeted as hip (Requiem for a Dream). After a longish pause, he has taken another direction, one of greater ambition but no greater clarity or good sense. He now has a beautiful girlfriend, mother of his child, Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz, whom he's made the center of a movie aboutwhat? You be the judge, but obviously it touches on modest topics like love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world, seeking to encompass them through a three-pronged story-line about:
1. A present-day medical researcher, Tommy Oreo (Hugh Jackman), working on monkeys with brain tumors in hopes of finding a cure for his wife Izzi's (Wiesz's) tumor; she has one too. This leads to some medically and scientifically questionable procedures (unlikely ones too) which a distinguished supervisor, Dr. Lillian Guzetti (Ellen Burstyn) strenuously disapproves of.
2. A Spanish explorer, Tomas (Jackman, looking for the fountain of life (or youth) in Latin America, urged on by Queen Isabel (Weisz), with trouble afoot from Grand Inquisitor Silecio (Stephen McHattie). Encounters with Mayan hierophants dressed up like in Apocalypto also occur. Thre's some hand-to-hand combat, but nobody's heart gets ripped out.
3. Meanwhile in the future sometime a sort of astronaut or guru is floating in outer space, sometimes in the yoga position. His name is Tommy (Jackman) and his guiding spirit is ..you guessed it, Izzi (Weisz). He seems to be the custodian of a magical tree.
Variations in chevelure distinguish the two stars in the separate time-frames. In sequence 1, Jackman has the unshaven look, with a down-flop hairdo. In No. 2, he's lushly bearded. In 3, he's as bald as an egg. Weisz's hair lengths vary appropriately.
Now, themes do emerge, and they're grand. "Death is an act of creation," the Maya priest (who's into killing people) says. "What if you could live forever?""Death is a disease, like any other," medical researcher Tommy shouts. "Death frees every soul," somebody says. Tomas samples the sap from a magical tree. Dropped on the ground it makes a stripling spring up instantly covered with leaves. Tomas applies it to a wound and the wound closes. He drinks a big glob of it and that is a big mistake. He's covered with striplings, springing out of his body. Back to the drawing board on that one.
The plight of researcher Tommy and his brave but doomed wife Izzi gets most of the screen time, and this is the segment that is easiest to parse into a narrative (though it's corny and punctuated with vapid dialogue), while not only is the development of the other segments spotty, their relationship to each other and the main plot remains incoherent, at most symbolic.
Jackman is a good sport; it's not his fault that his futuristic guru and his conquistador are mere fragments and his recurrent stints as the nervous researcher are stagy and less convincing than a TV hospital series. Weisz is a radiant beauty and a warm presence; she has a few moments when her emotions seem real. Her Spanish queen is just a static cameo. Ellen Burstyn adds class to a minor role. It's hard to speak of direction.
The uncertainty of this project is indicated by the fact that it is an attempt to redo a glossier one for which Warner Brothers put up $75 million (of which $20 million was spent), and which was to star Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. Irreconcilable difference between Pitt and Aronofsky were cited. Brad and Cate apparently went off to do the equally over-ambitious but infinitely superior Babel This pickup version was made for less than half the original budget. It appears corners were cut on the lighting. It is dim. The movie itself is a murky mess.
This is one genius whose mind I don't want to be trapped inside of.