Terrence Malick became a critics' darling, a hot young director to watch, with his first two features, "Badlands" (1973) and "Days of Heaven" (1978). Then he disappeared for 20 years.
By the time he returned with "The Thin Red Line," he had become, not surprisingly, a cinema legend.
His 2011 "Tree of Life" was the best of four "recent" (i.e., within the last 15 years) efforts. A slightly disguised memoir of his youth, that film was almost a memory-driven time machine, making suburban Texas in the '50s so real, so tangible, that the viewer had the remarkable sensation of being there.
His new "To the Wonder" is stylistically so similar that some Malick fans might think of it as "Tree of Life 2"; sadly, it struck me as more like "Undernourished Sapling of Life" — a pale shadow of its predecessor. Malick's evocative visual style is not enough to carry us past the very slender — almost non-existent — story. I loved "Tree of Life," despite the voiceover of whispered prayers and religious questions, which fell just shy of being irritating. An almost identical voiceover here doesn't fall shy; no, it reaches, then far surpasses, mere irritation.
