The Tree of Life - 3 stars out of 10

The Tree of Life - 3 stars out of 10

What do Brad Pitt, dinosaurs, piano music, bb guns, and evolution have to do with each other?  Just ask the writers of "The Tree of Life."  This perplexing avant-garde work finds itself torn between a lesson in parenting and demonstration in cool, old-school special effects.  This film would have made so much more sense to me without the 20-minute formation of the solar system.  While it is visually stunning, it seems completely out of place.  It's a shame because the visuals of this sequence were probably my favorite part of the film (especially the views of Saturn and Jupiter), but I didn't enjoy them because I spent the entire time on Wikipedia, trying to figure out why it was being shown.  The story of the O'Brien family is moving and upsetting, finding the ability to key in on my emotions through questionable parenting and its adverse effect.  But the tone set forth by the existential/evolutionary beginnings were unnecessary to put forth the ideas of grace (nurturing) vs. nature (authoritarian).  Although parts of this story appealed to me, I was also confused by the presentation, like watching time-lapse photography of a family's life.  There aren't really any scenes in this movie - Just snippets separated by cut-away shots.  The end product is a long coming-of-age montage and though I typically enjoy this sort of montage for 3-5 minutes to quickly further a plot, a 135-minute montage is a bit much.  It is difficult to even comment on the quality of acting since, with the longest single shot lasting 10 seconds, it is like a bunch of images instead of a flow of dialogue and acting.  I certainly cannot comment on Sean Penn, who could not have had more than 6 minutes of screen-time.  The only exception is Brad Pitt, who really stepped out of his typical nice and comical role.  His character made me feel very uncomfortable because this role is so uncharacteristically upsetting and yet, this is what makes his performance so impressive.  It is frustrating to see this child turn into his father.  It must be because both of my parents exhibited "grace" and that's what I was raised to believe is the proper way to live, but this is a great example of how circumstances can shape a child into a mean-spirited human.  It is no surprise that the premier of this film was met with boos and cheers from the audience.  Its visual beauty will draw your eyes and the fate of these children (at the hands of their father) will pull on your heart - the only problem is that these features have nothing to do with each other and just make for a boring, confused piece of art.  The combination of the odd musical score and seemingly random visual images turns this into that stereotypical artsy film so often portrayed in cartoons.  A proper ending could have pulled everything together but instead, it left me scratching my head and wondering how this film was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.