Captivating film poem undercut by repetition

Rating: 7/10 (21 February 2006)

For the first hour I was captivated by the beautiful imagery (courtesy of Emmanuel Lubezki), the transporting score (by James Horner), the ace production design (by Jack Fisk, the director of "Raggedy Man") and Terrence Malick's delicate handling of the film's key relationship between Colin Farrell (John Smith) and Q'Orianka Kilcher (Rebecca). We are drawn into the world of the "Naturals" (the first Indians encountered by the British) and lulled, as was Smith, into a reality that was destined to change.
As the Smith/Rebecca relationship changes, so does the relationship between the British and the Indians. The result is brutal conflict, and these sequences, shot in a style similar to "The Thin Red Line", are stunningly choreographed. They are also tragic for they depict the beginning of a culture's destruction.
After Farrelly disappears from the scene, the melancholy Rebecca is courted by John Rolfe (Christian Bale), a kind Brit who is sensitive to her grief. Though they sire an offspring, the native woman's joy is extinguished by a revelation that sends her emotions into a spin.
"The New World" is a rumination on love and loss, of a culture, of individuals. It is narrated by the key characters and structured like a poem. Malick's forte is using imagery of the natural and not-so-natural world as metaphor for the characters' shifting, troubled emotions.
For mine, the film is too long, and some of the narrative content is repeated again and again. Kilcher is an extraordinarily beautiful, natural presence, and her Rebecca, the film's center, is compelling. Farrell is a muscular dramatic persona and conveys his conflicted loyalties faithfully. Christian Bale, always believable, does what he can with a mostly one-note role.
The film lingers like dew on morning grass, but it is overinflated with its own self-importance and would have been more effective if trimmed of its clearly much-loved fat.