wanted my money back!

Rating: 1/10 (25 November 2006)

This was not the movie that the trailer lead me to believe that it was. It was 'artsy' and not a love story the way I would have imagined it to be (and hoped it to be). I sat through the whole movie thinking "I sure wish I hadn't wasted my money on this".
There was a film festival type short film here that was dragged out by repetitive (boring) scenes in order to lengthen it for the regular cinema. For example, Hugh's only 'happy' memory was the same vision of his dying wife running (I assume) through a part of their house laughing. This memory replay was vague at best and played like it was the only reason for his desire to blow off what little time he had left with his wife and to yell at her constantly even in the bubble. Personally, when I have happy thoughts about those that I love, I have many to choose from. This part seemed an extremely lame attempt of portrayal of 'happy memories' that were driving him mentally and physically.
But even that was not the worst of the movie. The worst was the future bubble in the nebula where Hugh became bald bubble boy. Oh my how that sucked the life out of the plot. It was by far the worst of the worst. Eating the 'hairy' tree (of life?) and Hugh 'inking' himself to death. Bald is beautiful they say; but what was it with the bald Hugh in the bubble? Making him a bald, tree eating, ink inflicting bubble boy floating around in a dead star nebula was just ridiculous; kind of like nails on a chalk board annoying artsy stuff. And where was the fountain that the movie was named for? In fact there was no fountain but just two trees. In the end, the tree did not extend his life but devoured it and turned him into a plot of flowers next to the tree (becareful what you wish for?).
I admit, I'm not a big fan of the "I'm doing this but it means that" type of art form. Whether it's on a canvas or on film, it is not my preference in entertainment. And all of these people commenting on how great the film is based on those factors...well, I can't relate because to me it was a great story idea ruined by the director's need to impose the 'figure out what I'm trying to say' film making technique rather than something that should have been finite and not open to so much interpretation and debate by the viewers. I'm not saying that I don't like a good 'figure it out as you go' movie, but something that has some real substance to it rather than so much vagueness and need to repeat scenes so often to fill up the empty space of the plot.
It's too bad too, because there were stars in this movie that I've enjoyed watching in the past, but this was not their magnum opus by any stretch of the imagination. The director went out of his way to make Hugh as ugly as he could; not only physically, but as a shallow person.
I can see this movie being redone with all of that in mind and make a true work of art in cinema by taking away the emptiness of this movie and filling it up with plot and acting that leaves you fulfilled instead of being left wanting for an actual story with some meat to it. This film should have stayed with film festivals instead of big screen cinema. There was just too much of the movie that didn't make any sense because it was played too much as 'artsy' instead of structured to deliver a real story line complete from beginning to end.
But having said that; if you like the artsy, it doesn't make sense movies, than this one will be a winner for you. Based on the comments here, there are a lot of folks who like this kind of stuff and I don't begrudge them that. But in all fairness, I do prefer movie trailers to give more accurate accounting of what I'm paying to see and this was not the story I had expected. Like I said, it should have stayed on the art festival level and not at my local movie theatre.
For me, I will be careful NOT to see anymore movies done by this particular director because he clearly has a style that I don't enjoy.