The question is 'how well does this work?'.
The narrative is about a family with three sons, and at the beginning of the film one of them dies. We see the functioning of the family, with a disciplinarian father (Brad Pitt) and an angelic mother (Jessica Chastain). This for Malick is partly autobiographical and is also a generalized and idealized world. We also have scenes in the present in which one of the sons, now an architect, played by be-suited Sean Penn, moves through aggressively modern environments looking angsty and unsmiling.
Interspersed there are images of the cosmos, showing sunspots, deep-sea creatures, birds and the natural environment. We even see prehistoric creatures, digitally rendered. This is an attempt, in two and a quarter hours, to embrace the whole of life, the universe and everything.
I have seen some very good films recently, which fire strongly on all the important cylinders of film-making: acting, screenplay, cinematography, direction, rhythm, editing, etc.
I am not sure this film works because the ideas have not been imaginatively turned into an artistic whole. The components are all there but they are still disparate. The cosmic and narrative parts do not become more than their sum. The narrative is slightly week, in the sense that it is not very dramatic, although there are times when one feels for the characters. Jessica Chastain has the right sort of frail beauty to suit her perfect-mother role, and Brad Pitt is good as the tough father. The boys are excellent as they get up to boy-like escapades. Much of this narrative is shown as flashes and snapshots, interspersed with sequences of 'cosmos' shots. I think Malick has realised well here what he intended, although I might not see the USA of President Eisenhower as a lost nirvana. It is just that what he intended is simplistic, and he wanted to reach out and include the whole of the cosmos, but couldn't really find a way to do it. I'm sure it's really hard to do.
