As we grow more and more tired of dull as dishwater, predictable, structure obsessed nonsense, we come to love films that want to use the medium to take us on a trip. I see nothing wrong with enjoying beautiful imagery, stunning music and a bit of emotional self analysis for a couple of hours. Or would you rather the story by numbers of say, Joy? I may not have loved this as much as Thin Red Line, or Tree of Life, But am I happy to spend two hours with Mr. M? Indeed I am. Anyone who has led anything verging on an interesting life will have plenty to ponder as this washes over them. This was like meditating. It's freeing to let a sense of the story wash over you without having some contrived plot shoved down your throat. I let the cinema invigorated and cleansed.
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benmichael-633314 January 2016
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giggs-3252724 January 2016It takes a while of watching the movie before starting to appreciate it. However, the longer you get, the more it starts growing on you. Its modernistic style is certainly not for everyone - but the combination of beautiful pictures and captivating music as well as the subtle messages of the flick, is in my opinion brilliant. As with many modernistic pieces it requires that you as a spectator participate, which is very giving, that is, if you actually do it. Then you will experience the emptiness we as human beings have to wrestle with: the apathetic nature of just following the flow: the slumber we experience the moment we stop being active and stop shaping our existence. The movie is a reminder not to fall in slumber, but to wake up and see the pearl.
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SnoopyStyle7 September 2016Rick (Christian Bale) is a successful movie screenwriter in Hollywood. He goes out with free-spirited Della (Imogen Poots). He goes to a tarot card reading. Barry (Wes Bentley) is his brother and Joseph (Brian Dennehy) is his father. Nancy (Cate Blanchett) is his ex-wife. Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) is another woman from his past. Tonio (Antonio Banderas) is a womanizer. Helen (Freida Pinto) is a model. Karen (Teresa Palmer) is a stripper. Fr. Zeitlinger (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is a priest. Rick moves through L.A., Vegas, and other places as he searches for meaning with various loves and hookers.
The acting is improvisational. The movie moves through L.A. and this world in a dreamlike fashion. Rick doesn't say much. The camera moves through his world like a spirit observing his life. In a way, it's a very fitting vision of LaLaLand. It reminds me of an IMAX movie I saw back in the 80's with disconnected action vignettes in Canada. It was disembodying but fascinating... for about thirty minutes. Luckily, that's how long that IMAX movie was. In this case, this movie lasts for two hours. One does check out sooner or later. I try to stay with it but it does get away from me a couple of times. -
Michael_Elliott31 August 2016Knight of Cups (2015)
** (out of 4)
Terrance Malick's latest comes as a major disappointment as it centers on a screenwriter (Christian Bale) trying to cope with his life, his brothers suicide and trying to make sense of the various women in his life.
KNIGHT OF CUPS got released to mixed reviews and it ended up crashing at the box office, which is really understandable. I'm not going to say I enjoyed this movie because I really didn't but at the same time I can understand why some might see this and call it one of the best films of the year. As with THE TREE OF LIFE, this film is certainly going to leave viewers with mixed reactions but I found that film to be a masterpiece whereas this one is a blurred mess.
I will start off talking about the one great thing and that's the cinematography. This is certainly one of the greatest looking pictures of the year and Emmanuel Lubezki deserves a lot of credit for what he was able to do. The cinematography is so great that it actually upsets you that there wasn't more to the film. There's no question that the look of the movie is something brilliant and it comes across as a beautiful visual trip. It certainly adds an atmosphere to the movie and there's no question that it's the best thing about the picture.
With that said, everything else is pretty much a mess. The determining factor on your reaction to the movie will be your feelings towards the lead character. He's pretty much walking around in a daze of depression, thought or perhaps both. I never cared about the character or his problems so I got rather bored very early on. The majority of the movie has him banging hot ladies and then walking around feeling sad. Now I'm sure fans of the film will read a lot more into it and say I missed the point and perhaps I did. Or perhaps they're making it seem like there are things in the film that aren't really there.
KNIGHT OF CUPS isn't a film that's going to appeal to very many but even Malick fans are going to be divided with it. You've got a terrific cast include Bale, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Brian Dennehy, Frieda Pinto and Antonio Banderas but none of them are really given a chance to act as they're all sucked up by the visual grace that the director was going for. -
nickle10114 September 2015Beautiful shots, lots of them. 2 hours of perfume ads, with an unhappy protagonist, Christian Bale. He is apparently a successful, but definitely miserable, comedy script writer; unintended irony I guess. He doesn't do anything, other than feature in most shots, often bare foot, speaking monotone about the difficulties of 'being', occasionally swimming in his clothes in swimming pools and the sea, often accompanied by women, one more beautiful than the other. The women, most of them, wearing flimsy designer attire, dance and wave their arms about for no apparent reason. The most exciting bit was the 5 sec. shot of Christian Bale riding a skateboard.
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gerrymueller9 September 2023I give it 3 stars, because 1) the cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, although most of the time the cuts between scenes, while dramtic, make very little sense; 2) the music background is beautiful, although a lot of the time I wanted The Foley guys to go away with their ambient stuff, and just let me hear the music; 3) although the story line (I really can't call it a plot) is basically non-existing, it does have some beautiful sublime moments but (as someone said about Wagner's music although I paraphrase) awful, dragging, going nowhere, boring, pointless, confusing, meaningless quarter hours.
It has some superb actors, but it is wasting their time, as most of the time it appears they don't know what they are actually acting in. Basically a waste of talent.
And while there is some mostly gratuitous semi and full nudity (female of course) it does nothing to further the plot (if there were one) and appears to be there mostly to get a restricted rating in order to suck in viewers.
That said, I kept watching to the end, not because it drew me in, but there was a sort of horrid fascination whit how bad it was, and wanting to see how much worse it could get. -
KineticSeoul1 January 2016This is a very Terrence Malick film where the trailer is far more interesting than the actual movie itself. It's leaning more towards the experience side of things over story and character development. There really isn't a direction, but a guy experiencing the shallow, pretentious, fake and hedonistic side of Hollywood as a screenwriter. The cinematography is nice to look at, although it drags on a lot with it's scenery which seems to take up much of the screen time. There is hardly much dialogue in this, just bunch of quotes and philosophical stuff. The plot is about a guy who works in Hollywood delving and indulging himself temptations that goes with money, fame, power and connections. And in doing so he feels that he is losing his identity in the process. It's not as crazy and trippy as the trailer makes it seem. Despite this film being ambiguous and all, it's still somewhat easy to follow. Because it's all about the experience over a story. Overall to sum the plot of this film in a humorous way...The whole thing is basically a rich guy problems kind of deal. So yeah, it is pretty shallow and pretentious but the setting and cinematography is neat enough to draw in certain audiences. However you can experience most of the stuff in this film if you go to a night club, a crazy and wild pub or a strip club. It isn't a amazing artsy film I would watch again and it wasn't really enticing, but I give it a pass. It's not a awful artsy film but it wasn't thought provoking or impactful either.
6.3/10 -
Stamone0531 December 2015This...is not a movie. It's a narrated commercial for nothing, or maybe for the cameras they used for filming? The shots are cool, I'll give it that, one point for the cinematography. Nothing happens in this commercial, there's no story arc, no plot, no character development. You will not experience any emotions during this film, unless you are moved by perfume ads in magazines. You will not have any thoughts about this thing either, besides 'why did I finish that?' , if you can survive to the end. Its a tough watch. Lots of pretty girls in it, so if that means anything to you, then I might recommend this.
I don't think they will release this movie in theaters, it won't be worth that type of distribution, because the movie looks expensive and the cast is top notch. I am not a film critic by any means, but I know this is bad. Not funny bad, just painstakingly boring and pointless bad.
Avoid -
luukvanriel14 February 2016I won't mislead anyone. This movie is a tough watch if you don't like movie as a form of art and poetry. This movie requires you to be open-minded, philosophically inclined and love good cinematography and music.
Malick once again put me in a hypnotic state of trance while watching this film. He keeps on going against conventional movie making. His style is hypnotic and gorgeous.
What I took away after and while watching this movie is that it is a observational piece on human behavior. It made me realize how crazy the human race is. The way we enjoy entertainment, treat our women and live our lives. It's all a really surreal thing for a species to do.
Apart from the plot, this movie is mesmerizing and extremely relaxing to watch. The soundtrack is trippy and hypnotic as always and Malick is really settling on a certain (like it or hate it) style of filmmaking. It's very personal whether you like his films or not. To me personally his films are wonderful observational pieces of art that should be stored and preserver for future generations to reflect upon.
His films are also really great material to watch when you're high on psychedelics ;) -
mpugachev2 January 2016Another seemingly inscrutable film from Terrance Malick. Can it be summed up as Mans search for Meaning in a seemingly meaningless world? Its definitely some kind of existentially themed flick, and there isn't much of a story or plot here, but the depth of ambition is quite deep. I felt the movie was very gentle, very genteel as well in its feel, all the dramatic yelling and cussing was muted aurally, and the camera moving gently about while the drama is exploding to the side certainly hammered that feeling home -- uncaring world, caring people. The movie didn't give any answers to the questions it raised, but it did accompany a certain feeling of unrest, of dread, but also of beauty and splendor. The score was beautiful, and all the songs used were really spot on and magnificent. The movie looks heavenly. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki made this movie look even better than The Revenant, but the Revenant had fancier camera work, choreography, and just bombast and ambition, however the colors were certainly prettier in this one. Was it Malick or Lubezki? How should i know. I don't think interiors have ever been more beautifully displayed in cinema than in this movie, and heck, the last shot of the desert took my breath away also. The way the shadows play with light is something to behold here. The director isn't even afraid to throw some jerky ugly disorienting camera movements this time around, or interject with some ugly footage, only to wow you with the real thing back again. I can still see the entire movie in my head 2 days later, so thats a sign that the images were something special, indeed. The only problem, and a trade-off of this kind of movie, is that there was not much of a plot and so I don't know how this movie will hold for repeat viewings. But it certainly leaves a strong indelible mark on you when the credits roll, and thats a mark of a great film. There isn't any witty dialogue or outstanding acting, but i don't think this particular film was going for that. Some people will fault this movie for that, but i think this isn't just that kind of movie where you quote the dialogue years later by heart. I wouldn't give out any acting awards to anyone here certainly. it reminded me of andrei rublev, a similar feel of something grandiose and spiritual unfolding before your eyes.
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Cathex10 January 2016If you narrate...your movie...using whispers...in short...sentences...it will make it seem...meaningful...
..only it wasn't. From start to finish this film is nothing more than stylised cliché. If you've seen the first 5 minutes then there is absolutely no need to watch the rest, because nothing else happens.
In short the film is as follows: Playful nymphets frolicking around in luxurious spaces, Christian Bale looking like he's had too much lithium, various narrators whispering something about life and some melodramatic improv. acting all filmed with a shaky camera. That's it. No meaning, no message and certainly no depth.
From the style of the film it's safe to say that the director is aiming at depicting a characters search for meaning in a superficial world of carnal desire and material illusion. Unfortunately though, far from creating some kind of Zen reflection, the film itself remains as superficial as the characters it portrays. The direction is a bag of tricks with the same series of shots repeated over and over and the narration is all pseudo-poetic garbage delivered in whispers so it seems deep.
This is all actually very surprising, because this same director also made 'The Tree of Life' which was similar in style to this film but actually had a purpose and urgency to it. In comparison this really does seem suspiciously like a very lazy imitation of his earlier work.
Spiritually this film is about as important as a Levi jeans advert and artistically it's as beautiful as a plastic palm tree. There's literally no reason to watch this film, it's simply the product of Malick's ego masturbation brought to orgasm with the help of some Hollywood A-Listers in the hope everyone would come off looking like celebrity Buddhists. Instead they just look like fakers.
Take my advice, don't waste your time and money on this pretentious nonsense, go and watch The Tree of Life instead. -
arwn29 November 2018I don't know what is there not to get. Why people are so confused about this film. It's very simple. It's said right in the beginning "Remember the story I used to tell you when you were a boy? About a young prince, a knight, sent by his father, the King of the East, west into Egypt, to find a pearl. A pearl from the depths of the sea. But when the prince arrived, the people poured him a cup that took away his memory. He forgot that he was the son of the king. Forgot about the pearl. And fell into a deep sleep.The king didn't forget his son. He continued to send word, messengers, guides. But the prince slept on." And this is basically what this film is about. Trying to wake up, trying to find yourself. Seeing your lived life flashing by before drowning, and feeling the loss and regret of wasted life and opportunity. Now seeing the messages and messengers that were sent to you, but you were blind. You were asleep and refused to wake up. You wanted to dream. You could have been anything, but you didn't choose anything. You were lost and you didn't even know you were lost.
In the very end he chooses. He chooses to try again. And pushes himself to the surface of the water. -
kosmasp1 February 2016How can one rate a "movie" like this one? How can you sum up, what is happening? Maybe you can't, maybe some will be able to see through it, maybe some won't. Even "Tree of Life" seems like a "Straight Story" compared to this. And yet still it is intriguing and very well thought of. It is about life, love and how we spend our time on this planet. How and with whom we surround ourselves with.
Interestingly enough there is a lot of nudity in the movie, which I didn't expect. But nothing that is shown or meant to be exciting. It's just shown, because it is. The movie begins with a voice over which sets the tone. It's like someone is narrating our lives (or C. Bales characters life in that case). While boundaries and rules of filmmaking do not seem to matter to Malick (or at least he likes to break them), for the uninitiated viewer this will come as a shock. Something he or she won't be able to enjoy as movie. Because in fact this isn't just a movie. It transcends that boundary for better or worse. Depending on what you make of it ... -
damianphelps26 May 2023I quite often like an alternative film, I think its generally brave of filmmakers to ignore commerce and follow an artistic pathway. I consider Lynch and Cronenberg two of my favourite directors.
Knight of Cups...utter rubbish. Filled with a cast who appear to want to add an artsy film to their ography so they can sleep better at night.
It meanders along like toxic sludge looking to leave its imprint over all that is better.
Overly long, repetitive and dull. Not words you would want to associate with your visual opus.
I was attracted to the film because of Bale but not even he could get me to find any moments of joy in this movie :) -
kdavies-6934721 February 2016Knight of Cups was a very different subject than I was expecting from director Terrence Malick. Few directors delve into the raw emotional content that carries us through our daily narrative. Most of his films approach the viewer from the very abstract to the rather mundane. I was quite impressed with most of his previous work, but I failed to grasp what was going on here.
Christian Bale confirmed in an interview with The Guardian, a few things that people should know before watching this film. Mostly that the director did very little in terms of actual direction and scripting. Every scene in this film was either unscripted or improvised. Actors were playing off each other and had very little to go off of scene by scene.
Bale plays a successful Hollywood Screenwriter, who is haunted by his traumatic past and fails at most of his relationships. Not out of poor decisions but because he seems lost more than anything. The events that lay before him are strange and somewhat unconnected, but the recurring theme of his affairs, love interests, and strange breathy narration (which is fairly typical for Malick's films), make this film somewhat of a repeating loop of the same events over and over again. You're left a bit confused at the end wondering, what was this film about. There are some beautiful shots in it, yet still a difficult movie to follow.
A rather contemporary, if unguided effort on the director's part, and falls somewhat flat next to his more spectacular body of work.
5/10 -
fornallaza14 September 20152 hours of meaningless series of fashion ads. Fashion covers architecture, gardening, philosophy and more. Dialogue is made of trivial sentences uttered in an inspired tone, e. g. "Don't forget you have a soul." For sure, the author has no pity on the spectator or the characters and the corresponding players. Bale doesn't seem to enjoy his part at all. The problem is, his uneasiness contaminates the audience. The other characters are almost inexistent. Women are mostly remarkable for their buttocks.
Mister Malick ignores the art of critical realism, or should I say critical idealism. That is, it is perfectly possible to represent boredom in a way that awake some positive reactions in the viewer. I my case the reaction would have been sleep, if the theater had more comfortable seats. Another negative point is the abuse of images of the ocean, sand, waves, sunsets or maybe sunrises, and palm trees. The average tourist with his tablet can certainly approximate this flood of images. -
The_Nostromo877 January 2016When we go into a Terrence Malick film, we generally know what we're in for: a spiritual journey into Man's soul through unconventional, yet beautiful cinematic means. Malick's films are mostly unscripted and plot less, instead using nature to assist them iin creating a narrative by use of both visceral and symbolic imagery. And like Werner Herzog, there seems to be an almost divine force on their side.
Then there's Knight of Cups: A cinematic farce masquerading as profundity; an excruciating exercise in self indulgent banality. I couldn't believe what was unfolding before me. It was just empty--Lubezki's cinematography, the voice over, the character's-- just empty. A borderline Malick parody. It was almost as if the film was made by a machine, or perhaps some sort of alien being attempting to recreate human emotion. I literally felt nothing while watching it.
The only justifiable reasoning I can fathom on how Malick directed this film, is if he was trying to give the audience a hands on experience of the superficiality and mundanity of the protagonist's life. If this is the case, then I suppose the film is technically a success. If you can call that a success. I'd say the filming of paint drying would be an equally effective treatment of the subject. -
nirupam-astro9 January 2016The movie is filled with beautiful imagery like any other Terrence Malick film. Malick knows that a visual experience can transmit the emotions, thoughts and ideas of thousand words, and one has to understand that to appreciate his movies. The narrative also holds its ground. It takes you through the existential crisis Christian Bale's character Rick faces. I would suggest you to watch "Tree of Life" & "To the Wonder" first as the three movies form an implicit trilogy and kind of an autobiography. Tree of Life is the magnum opus of Malick and I can't help comparing his any other movie with it. That's why the 6 rating. P.S. The movie is easy on the eye, yet somewhat confusing. A bit like my girlfriend.
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westsideschl26 June 2016Ughhh, yuck. OK, that's out of me. Another attempt in film of unscripted free- expression trying to produce something meaningful (or perhaps the intent was to be unmeaningful? - sounds better than meaningless). The writer/director, with a little guidance to the actors, just asked them to wing-it as they felt appropriate to the setting. The problem is actors basically had to rely on their life experiences which for the most part has probably been a life of pampered pretend. A better choice would have been to replace the boring lives of actors with real people who have had to endure difficult, challenging, even life changing events.
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Writer/director Terrence Malick is Terrence Malick and either you relate to his films or avoid them. They are art pieces: not all art appeals to everyone. His films are an expression of a philosophy that the mind constructs all the input the eyes see and the body feels and while it may not make a story that is easy to follow (is there really anything to follow in any of his films?) it provides a unique experience that requires the viewer to relinquish expectations of storytelling and simply sail through the visual magnificence of the images Malick places on the screen and populates with enough characters to offer a hand during the journey he has shared.
Try to piece together a definition of the story and it comes in two levels: 1) 'A 30 year old writer (Rick – Christian Bale) indulging in all that Los Angeles and Las Vegas has to offer undertakes a search for love and self via a series of adventures with six different women.' And 2) A fable – 'Once there was a young prince whose father, the king of the East, sent him down into Egypt to find a pearl. But when the prince arrived, the people poured him a cup. Drinking it, he forgot he was the son of a king, forgot about the pearl and fell into a deep sleep.' The sections of the film are named according to Tarot Cards.
The dialogue is mostly off camera (with notable exceptions) and offers some sensitive philosophical notes that accompany the photography and the essentially classical music score that illuminates the film. The dialogue counts: Joseph (Brian Dennehy) is the main character Rick's father and states 'You think when you reach a certain age things will start making sense, and you find out that you are just as lost as you were before. I suppose that's what damnation is. The pieces of your life never to come together, just splashed out there.' And there are many memorable lines – 'You live in a little fantasy world, don't you?' 'Treat this world as it deserves, there are no principles, just circumstances. Nobody's home.' All those years, living the life of someone I didn't even know.' 'No one cares about reality anymore.'
The cast, even if through very brief appearances, is uniformly excellent – Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Brian Dennehy, Natalie Portman, Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto, Wes Bentley, Imogen Poots, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Cherry Jones, Jason Clarke, and too many others to credit. The magnificent cinematography is by Emmanuel Lubecki and the musical score montage is credited to Hanan Townshend.
Perhaps not a film for everyone, but for those who wish to expand their visual and philosophical horizons, set sail with Knight of Cups. -
alex_van_beek6 January 2016This film is beautiful, it is poetic and it is bullsht.. it is thoroughly depressing and at times confusing. The only relief to this is when your confusion abades when finally you stop trying to figure out what the Hell is actually going on and on when you simply decide to enjoy the pretty colours and shapes of American architecture and scenery. Because to wonder why the characters (if you can even call them that) are in any place and for what reason to to grasp at straws which aren't even there.
This film is essentially an aggrandising and glorification of the shallow side of human nature in the most unrelentingly pitying fashion. It's two hours worth of very little substance with some very big names, filmed in a very beautiful way. It's like a feature length GQ photo shoot.
That all said, it was very pretty. Just don't expect to come away from it with anything other than a sense of numbness. As I say in my title, it is very much like watching a foreign film without subtitles. You get the gist of what's going on, but there is no detail for which you can attach yourself emotionally. You won't care about any of the characters nor what is going on, if anything was actually going on at all.
Alternative titles for this film may have included "Christian bale gets so bored that he thinks he might possess actual human emotion but it turns out he just took some mescaline with a model" or "rich people get so happy that it eventually makes them sad". -
julian-640-54405810 January 2016I am usually quite tolerant of movies that seem to miss the mark, but this disaster was nothing but a disjointed series of unrelated scenes. It gave me the impression the director just got a new camera and was trying out all of the features on arbitrary meaningless subjects.
It would be very interesting to see how he managed to get some notable actors to participate in this. Maybe they owed someone a favor, I don't know. But what I do know is there is no story of any kind here. Nothing.
At least I did not feel too alone when I asked, "What is this about?", as I am sure the actors, writer and director all asked the same questions when the saw the screening.
Perhaps a more pertinent questions might be: "How did something like this even get made?" -
Lubezki1 January 2016Let's get one thing straight; Terrence Malick's films aren't exactly everyone's cup of tea. They're arguably the most unconventionally crafted movies from a well renowned director out there. Audiences normally criticize him for being highly pretentious and having no meaning in his work. But for some, his films represent everything we love about the artistic medium of motion pictures. With his latest offering, "Knight of Cups", Christian Bale stars as a screenwriter eager to explore his seedy persona in the dreamlike whereabouts of LA.
The film swoons along with a plethora of illusory montages, with Bale being Malick's primary focus as he trudges through the streets of downtown L.A., bizarre nightclubs swarming with vibrant dancers, house parties exclusively for the rich and meditative walks through the desolate wastelands of the Las Vegas desert. For the majority of the film he cuts a forlorn figure, basically looking to find some sort of significance of his life and finding the answer to faith. And in typical Malick fashion, none of what we see on screen is straightforward and we're left to determine our own meaning on the gorgeously composed images. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki once again has a vice like grip on how to bring an ethereal visual lyricism to surroundings.
Malick is one the very few directors who really embraces the beauty of artistic filmmaking. They may not follow a clear cut narrative, but there's no doubting that there's an alluring poetic rhythm that's present in his films. The key is for the viewer to figure out what Malick is attempting to portray. And even if you can't, just go along for the experience. Simply put, if you enjoy his films, you'll most likely find some sort of reward with this. -
I loved TM's last 2 movies, I thought they were both visually poetic.
Knight of Cups however just feels like left over footage. Its a very draining watch. Here is a man, who seemingly has everything materially that life can offer, a stunningly beautiful wife, GF's, lovers, money, amazing homes by the sea but he can't let himself to go love from the heart. So we follow him around in his moribund state. We've all felt lost in life and this is quite well done, but after an hour I found it all a bit tedious, to the point where you can't be bothered to invest any emotion into any of the characters, maybe that's the point?
The music & score is stunning it must be said. The voice overs, however wise they are start to grate.
I really feel Terrance Malic is going through a creative mid life crisis. (even though he is in his 70's)I was expecting something bigger, more beautiful, but it was pretty much the same as before.
Most people will hate it, some will love it, but fans like myself will feel slightly disappointed -
Horst_In_Translation13 September 2015"Knight of Cups" is the newest film by American filmmaker Terrence Malick, who is way into his 70s by now. First of all, the cast of this 120-minute movie looks excellent: Bale, Portman, Blanchett, Poots, Mueller-Stahl, Kingsley, Banderas, Pinto... you cannot ask for much more than that. However, everybody who knows Malick's other (more recent) works will know that his films are so defined in his unique style that there is rarely room for great acting. And the same is the case here. I thought this was a pretty boring watch, possibly worse than "Tree of Life" and certainly worse than "To the Wonder".
Bale is in this one pretty much in every scene from start to finish. We follow his path as he struggles with his brother, but mostly from one relationship with women to the next and it does get repetitive pretty quickly. Müller-Stahl and Portman are very forgettable. Blanchett's scenes are the film's highlight and these 10-15 minutes may have been a good short film, but for these alone it is not worth watching the entire thing. Antonio Banderas is downright embarrassing in his 5 minutes. Lubicki's cinematography is okay, but cannot make up for the weaknesses in script. Some religious moments in here as well and it all feels like a second slightly weaker "Tree of Life". I think Malick is the strongest when he has more than one lead character. Nothing wrong with Bale's performance here. I don't think another actor could have made this work. Oh and a final note about Malick's style in general. It is basically impossible to create a film, in which every scene is an emotional highlight, but that is pretty much what he attempts with the constant classical background music and of course his unique approach where you rarely see the main characters speak, but always hear them in voice-overs. The worst scene was possibly the armed robbery. It absolutely did not fit together with what we heard during this scene. Not a good film unfortunately. All in all, not recommended.