Will Divide Audiences

Rating: 7/10 (15 September 2006)

When I read the script for THE FOUNTAIN in late 2005, I found it to be a fairly low calorie film. There's the central conceit of two characters named Thomas and Isabel who share a love that stretches across time and space but, otherwise, it was something of a one trick pony. Three tales of Thomas (Hugh Jackman) and Isabel (Rachel Weisz) are branches of the same (literal) tree.
Tomas and Isabel are a conquistador and Queen of Spain. The loyal Tomas journeys to Central America on the quest to locate the Tree of Life; cutting his way through as many Mayans as it takes to get there. The central Thomas, a doctor, appears to have access to part of the Tree which he uses on terminally ill monkeys in hopes of curing his terminally ill writer wife, Izzy. The third Thomas may or may not be a later version of the second. This one floats in a bubble through space with his "giving tree" of a wife. He's headed to Xibalba (not to be confused with Three Dog Night's "Shambala"), the Mayan underworld - a place of redemption and rebirth. The stories wind and wander around each other like wild vines. Dialogue and images echo one another throughout the ages. The past and future may simply be the different writings of Isabel and Thomas who begin and end a story called "The Fountain." My expectations were incredibly low for this film between the script and the last experience I had watching a film starring a tree (Kiyoshi Kurosawa's CHARISMA). Luckily, the performances and direction made THE FOUNTAIN palatable. I wouldn't go so far as to recommend the film to anyone and I'm fine never seeing it again but it was an unobjectionable way to spend two hours.