To the Wonder * (R) Disclaimer - If you enjoy those perfume commercials with shadowy, ephemeral people whispering vague words and phrases in assorted surreal settings, read someone else’s review. Your response to this arty offering from respected writer/director Terrence Malick may vary widely from mine. He presents overlapping views of yearning and frustration in romantic love between a couple, and a priest’s quest to regain the love of God that once felt like a calling, thorough a series of lyrical abstractions, with more narration from the characters about their feelings than dialog during their actions. They were unhappy. I became annoyed. The liberal use of voice-overs from the characters is a standard for Malick, but he usually balances that with more on-screen activity. This one’s a study in technique for film students, but short on substance for the rest of us.
Olga Kurylenko plays a French woman with a daughter. Ben Affleck meets her in France. An idyllic whirlwind romance ensues, as they romp through a number of lovely settings backed by the sort of lighting and instrumentals one finds in VH1 music videos. The three head for the US in a variety of less glamorous settings, as Ben’s career apparently involves sampling oil digs and construction sites for pollutants, without ever learning what he does with the findings. Their romance is periodically playful and passionate, but his baseline impassiveness leaves Olga bereft. She returns to Paris. He takes up with an old flame (Rachel McAdams), but remains too aloof to keep her, either. That leads to round two with Olga. Periodically, the focus shifts to Javier Bardem, as the priest pining for the connection to God that used to nourish him.
We see a lengthy parade of moments and locations - not necessarily in temporal order. The searchers start to seem like bottomless pits of need and doubt, dissipating any empathy, or even curiosity, about their backstories or fates. Olga and Javier keep looking for signs that will prove they have the love and connection they crave. One might save a couple of hours by recognizing that all of us create our own reality filters that shape what the words and deeds of others mean to us and about us. Ben’s character and God may be similarly opaque to these two, but that just means their answers lie somewhere within themselves...and not anywhere in the pages of this script. (4/19/13)