Cloying, superficial, grandiose and weirdly empty for a movie trying to be so profound

Rating: 5/10 (2 December 2010)

The Fountain (2006)
A superficially ambitious, fantastical film that throws clichés like peanut butter--sticky, oily, uncooked bits of Profundity. I love deep, romantic, obsessive movies, and I couldn't stand this one.
I think young people (or my younger self) might soak this up, especially people looking for meaning in their lives. For pure inventive fantasy, the Lord of the Rings movies are far better, and less pompous, and the Harry Potter movies have better plots and characters. "Pan's Labyrinth" has more magic and imagination. In fact, any number of movies in these kinds of fantastical realms have more going on. Because half the movie occurs in a modern hospital (with all its own clichés--the heart monitor, the dying people, the rush of medical workers to save someone) and because it's about true love that cannot die, the closest parallel might be "What Dreams May Come," which has the life/death struggle and the investigation of what our souls are, what a spirit is, what life is.
For me "The Fountain" was overstuffed with overused ideas of what serious, epic, mysterious, meaningful things are. It is equal parts wishful thinking and self-importance, with quasi-inventive set design (modeled after other fantasy films in its endless darkness, unwashed hair, overgrown trees, misty landscapes). It is also photographed with almost painfully consistent symmetry across the wide screen aspect ratio. I think this is meant to imply something grand and important, something with Eastern religious overtones, but it also makes the scenes static, even ones where characters are going through hugely physical, violent, or emotional events.
Hugh Jackman? He's not my idea of an actor with depth (watch "Australia" for proof)--but then, this movie isn't really about depth, it's about the appearance of depth, the kind of depth a Hallmark sympathy card has. It's not like really weeping, it's about watching what weeping should look like. Rachel Weisz is only a pretty face here, which only cheapens the movie more, as there is no real reason for the Jackman character to obsess over her. Call it love, yes--it's a love story, technically--but you won't see any real love at work. There's better obsessive love with spiritual overtones in Coppola's "Dracula" fantasia.
"The Fountain" is not without interest, but it will have to be up your alley, to get into it meaningfully. Good luck.