Interesting story about fighting a loved one's impending death gets the "Wow, I'm deep" treatment

Rating: 7/10 (11 August 2007)

Aronofsky has a great talent at depicting the human condition in time of extreme emotional desperation. The modern day scenes with Jackman and Weisz are absolutely excellent, the dramatizations of the unfinished Conquistador story are good and the man in the space bubble sequences are interesting but conceptually flimsy. While the space settings may get labeled "Sci-Fi", it isn't. It's apparently a representation of Jackman's character's mental state as time runs out for his sick wife. Beautiful and ugly at the same time.
Unfortunately, the attempt to combine Mayan imagery, Tai Chi Chuan and a basic Yoga posture comes off on the level of a second year film school production. And the scenes of the man peeling human hair covered bark off the space bubble tree and eating it seem out of a David Lynch film. Weird and needlessly disturbing.
After the great "Requiem for a Dream" I had hoped that director had these sort of self- indulgent mistakes out of his system. While only 90 minutes long, it could have benefited with about ten minutes edited from the space bubble sequences, especially at the very end. Like his first film, "Pi", Aronofsky seems to have a problem cutting to the chase, so to speak.
Regardless, it's a very interesting film if you are prepared for it.