WONDERS STIRRED IN "TO THE WONDER"

By Chuck Graham, TucsonStage.com

 

 

The ever more abstract filmmaker Terrence Malick won’t be acquiring many new fans with his newest release, “To the Wonder.” But he shouldn’t be losing many, either, in its current run at the Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway Blvd.

In fact if you love how Malick’s films have continued to grow more emotionally spare since “The Thin Red Line” (1998), followed by “The Tree of Life” in 2011, you will be quite happy here.

Languid outdoor visuals fill the screen for 112 minutes. The actors, especially Olga Kurylenko as Marina, are often seen spinning with their arms outstretched. This reluctance to choose a specific direction often takes place in the vast landscapes of rural Oklahoma.

There is very little dialogue, especially for Ben Affleck as Neil, the indecisive lover and then husband of Marina. Appearing in the middle of the story, and given very little to do is Rachel McAdams as Jane, a high school girlfriend of Neil.

Appearing occasionally for brief spurts like an omen of foreboding – a metaphor of Christianity itself -- is Javier Bardem as Father Quintana, an even more troubled man of the cloth.

There is so little conversation that you could describe “To the Wonder” as a silent film which is briefly dialogue enhanced from time to time.

There is lots of beauty, in a scenic sense, as the contrasting backdrop for sad lives wandering like streams searching for a way to the sea. This pairing recalls “The Thin Red Line” with its brutal attacks surrounded by tropical splendor during World War II in the Pacific Theater.

Plot-wise, some of it takes place in the culture rich environment of Paris. The rest of it takes place in utilitarian Oklahoma, rural as well small town in its architecture. Neil is the Oklahoma oil engineer in Paris, befriending Marina, who is actually a Ukranian expatriate with a 10-year-old daughter.

Neil and Mariana fall rapturously in love in Paris, move to Oklahoma where Neil works for one of the oil companies. He becomes hesitant to marry Marina. She moves back to Paris.

He takes up with Jane from his Oklahoma boyhood, but soon misses Mariana. She misses him. They are back in Oklahoma, and do get married, but life doesn’t go smoothly.

So this entire journey of the heart is told in scenes shuffled like cards so there is no particular difference between flashbacks and current events.

Yet, “To The Wonder” does feel satisfying. While there is nothing conventional about the film, there is within it a kind of poignant wisdom that would be difficult to reach any other way.