{"id":15298,"date":"2013-06-20T22:47:12","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T21:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=15298"},"modified":"2013-06-20T22:54:39","modified_gmt":"2013-06-20T21:54:39","slug":"blu-ray-to-the-wonder-malick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2013\/06\/20\/blu-ray-to-the-wonder-malick\/","title":{"rendered":"Blu-ray: To the Wonder"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ben<\/a><\/p>\n

Terrence Malick\u2019s latest film premiered last Autumn to largely mixed reviews<\/a> but whilst it is the most extreme film he has made in his trademark style, it has a refreshing boldness to it along with some beautiful sequences.<\/p>\n

Malick\u2019s work has frequently eschewed conventional notions of filmmaking with their sparse dialogue, dreamy visuals and obsession with nature.<\/p>\n

This has been amplified since his return to Hollywood in 1998 after a self-imposed 20 year exile, where films such as The Thin Red Line (2005), The New World (2005) and The Tree of Life (2011) have gone even further than his earlier work Badlands (1973) and Days of Heaven (1978).<\/p>\n

He has never been afraid to tackle big themes such as love, death, nature or even the creation of life itself.<\/p>\n

In doing so he has also established certain stylistic flourishes: hushed interior monologues; shots of plants; and use of classical music.<\/p>\n

With To the Wonder he has taken his trademark elements and turned them up to the nth degree, but whilst the end result falls short of his best films, it is by no means the unintentional work of self-parody that some have suggested.<\/p>\n

The story centres on a man (Ben Affleck) torn between two women: Marina (Olga Kurylenko), a European he has met in Paris who comes back to the United States with him, and Jane (Rachel McAdams), the old lover he reconnects with from his hometown in Oklahoma.<\/p>\n