THE FOUNTAIN (Darren Aronofsky, 2006) **1/2

Rating: 6/10 (18 July 2007)

This is an intriguing but muddled and, finally, undernourished fantasy with biblical pretensions – one that’s undeniably visually arresting, particularly since it skips from one time period to the other (15th century Spain, the present day and the future). Another major asset is the evocative score.
Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz make up the affecting central couple: as a conquistador, he searches for the Tree Of Life (Weisz also plays the Spanish queen in this section); as a doctor, he races against time to find a cure for his dying wife – eventually obtaining immortality for himself (hence, the futuristic ‘episode’). Ellen Burstyn (who had been given a new lease of life by the same director’s REQUIEM FOR A DREAM [2000]) appears here as Jackman’s superior in the contemporary sequences.
The film’s non-linear structure results in confusion during the first hour – but, slowly, the various plot threads come together; however, the ending is rather abrupt. The conquistador ‘segment’ constitutes the best section of the film, while the futuristic scenes seem to be reaching for a 2001-like abstractness!