A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

The Evaluation System Reviews by Title Reviews by Date

Reviews from Video Reviews of the Classics Personal Background

Title: The Fountain

Date Viewed: 11/24/06

Details:

Hugh Jackman

Rachel Weisz

Ellen Burstyn

Written & directed by: Darren Aronofsky

Score: 1/2

The Review: Dramatic fantasy with a few minor science-fiction tidbits as window dressing -- somewhere at the border between allegory and myth. The trailers are more than a bit misleading. The plot of The Fountain is not quite what you might have seen in advance, but the film is no less watchable because of that -- just don't hold on too tightly to your preconceptions.

Three stories interpenetrate asynchronously, with several common elements, one being the quest for the "tree of life" -- the mythological underpinning of Ponce de Leon's search for the fountain of youth (whence the title). The heavyweight thread in our current timeline is a character study of a research scientist (Jackman) obsessed with curing his wife's (Weisz) cancer, and stumbling onto something entirely different. The other threads have curious origins best left to the viewer's imagination and experience of the film, but one of the more fascinating bridges is Xibalba -- both a Mayan underworld and a minor astronomical anomaly.

The rich cinematography enhances all three plot lines; in many ways this film is much more interesting to watch than the plot is to think about.

(26-Nov-06)

Back to the chronological list of reviews