Death is a disease. Like any other.

Rating: 1/10 (13 August 2014)

"And there's a cure. I will find it." Words of The Fountain's protagonist. Here's the plot of the film: a man who achieves immortality - in other words, finds the aforementioned cure - fails to find any joy in it, instead choosing to pine for his long-deceased wife. Seriously, that's the core of it - a guy who misses his missus. (yawn)
The Fountain is a tedious rehashing of the themes of loss and longing, wrapped up in some admittedly pretty imagery to the accompaniment of an OST by the always great Clint Mansell. If you want a better acted, more entertaining, and more emotional look at similar issues, try Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That one doesn't feature such obscene, depressing praise for death and its acceptance, either.
I rate The Fountain so low (2/10) because Aronofsky really is pathetic in what he does here. He's a guy ever-brooding over death and the futility of life (this feeling permeates all of his work), and in The Fountain he lays out his metaphorical crutches that he's built up to help him deal with those issues. What follows is a wimpy, panicked barricade of self-delusion and self-placation.
Oh, that laughable plot. An immortal man is flying to commit suicide because his dead wife is the only thing he can think about. Plus death, as the movie constantly reiterates, is great, and necessary, and you'd do well to practically rush into it head-first. Because it's "the road to awe".
Let's use some logic for a change, eh? What is this "awe"? Something beyond death? Well, if Aronofsky managed to be honest with himself, he'd realize that "something beyond death" is simply a different form of life, and hoping that death leads to that "awe" is a veiled desire to get some more life after this life. That's why they call it "the afterlife".
Now: if you want more life...and you get an infinite amount of it by achieving immortality...isn't the "problem" solved? And if life is intolerable without your dead wife, what's good about that "awe" that death will lead you to? Even if you find some afterlife, it's highly unlikely that it's going to be exactly what you dream of, i.e. a place where you can hang out with your loved one. You're taking a huge chance on a) total oblivion, b) an afterlife without the dead wife.
Point is, what you are if you think and behave like the protagonist, and by extension (or precedence) - Aronofsky, what you are is what's known as "needy" and "suicidal". You're not cut out for existence. If you would die/kill yourself because you lost someone, then you're one of the very weakest human beings - and living beings in general - around.
You can look on this plot as not literal in all of its aspects, sure; but its meaning stays fundamentally unchanged: welcome death, don't chase after immortality, "love" is more important than anything. What if you are too cynical to believe in "love"? Or too self-sufficient to forever feel damaged if you lose a certain person in your life? Aronofsky doesn't really acknowledge the existence of such people. Or of the possibility of finding joy in never-ending life.
If the plot is to be taken literally, then it makes little to no sense for even more reasons, by the way. After finding the cure to aging and death, humanity would thrive, and immortals would multiply. If afterwards mankind were, by some miracle, decimated completely, the chances that only one immortal would somehow survive the cataclysm and be left to fly around in an indestructible spaceship would be infinitesimal.
This assessment, by the way is based on the fact that the Clint Mansell OST features a track called "The Last Man".
Hugh Jackman's acting is decent. Rachel Weisz's is irritating. I don't particularly like her acting to begin with, and the fact that her character is a superficial, empty, charmless cutout doesn't help.
P.S. And now Aronofsky's made a movie about Noah. Consistency is certainly not the man's strongest suit, is it? I mean, the guy who called for welcoming death as the road to awe now makes a movie about a mythical man who serves as the ultimate savior of life on Earth. If Aronofsky had any strength of conviction, he'd alter the story of Noah and make the guy drown the ark and everyone on it because he thought that life was a tragic mistake and didn't want to go on. Plus maybe he didn't endorse God's genocide of the rest of humanity and didn't want to serve as such a monster's obedient pawn. Aronofsky doesn't make movies about characters who break out of the mold, however. Quite the opposite: his characters always submit. To death, to God, to fate, to chance...to whatever. Point is, resistance is futile in his world. In his sad, powerless, gloomy world all you can do in the end is go along...