Preface: It is with regret that I have in the past subconsciously categorized people's personalities as "Likes Tree of Life" and "Doesn't Like Tree of Life," and I now realize this is unfair. Especially since most people who watch a movie (and this is truly shocking) want to be... entertained! Crazy concept, right? While I don't like getting meta or oversimplifying cinema to "objective" and "subjective" components, because I think that's malarkey, I understand some people just don't "enjoy" this film and I accept that. The following review will, instead of futilely convincing people to enjoy it, dissect what I gathered from it and what it means to me. You've been warned.

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Such an unconventionally structured film, one of The Tree of Life's strongest virtues is that it plays with perspective. Sometimes the point of view follows Jack, sometimes it follows his family, sometimes it follows unrelated creatures, and sometimes it voyages space and time in a spectacular out-of-body experience. Why does it do this? Why would a movie break such practical rules, especially in such a wild way? The purpose of the film is to display, portray, and convey life, and life does not contain itself to our puny, biased perspectives like we so often think it does. The beauty and grandness of life extends so far that to understand it most effectively, it must be impressed upon us poetically and gracefully, lest the risk is run of letting convention and familiarity blind us to its nuance.

The main "plot" feels so small and wistfully threaded that it seems convention and familiarity have taken reigns in a different way, yet that is far from the case. Jack's childhood is full of simplicity and conflict most people once knew all too well. He has an ignorant curiosity, an immature energy, and a rebellious spirit. His family is normal, a nuclear standard in America with nothing that makes them explicitly stand out... and yet, when we let ourselves get absorbed in the wider context of the whole universe just conveyed earlier in the film, each simple connection to this family, each basically relatable moment becomes something new. It signifies something new. It signifies being alive, being blessed with a presence in the constantly running, breathing, changing, living universe and the love that comes with it when we open our eyes. Jack's plasticity in his youth represents our own smallness in the universe, and our peering into his mind reveals the same questions we were afraid to ask in childhood out of fear of defiance, and are afraid to ask in adulthood out of fear of doubt. Jesus says those who enter His kingdom must be like children, embodying relative insignificance and humility, and Jack portrays why this is so hard! His insignificance only reveals weakness and inferiority for him, and he is still blind to the celebration of life that continues to surround and inspire him, if only he could see it!

The law of nature and the law of grace are at odds in this story, in a conflict that rings truer in the real world. What people don't always see is the cruciality of both sides, however. Jack's mother is the grace that celebrates and gives vibrance to life, and his father is the nature that reveals to him the truth of the broken yet beautiful world. Nature needs grace to keep it under control; grace must be juxtaposed with nature so its forgiveness can be revealed. Jack needs both his parents, no matter the growth-inspiring struggle their coexistence intermittently fuels in his heart (and grace's ever-so-slight presence in his father signifies its triumph). This film, like masterpieces Stalker and Silence, provides more theological questions than it does answers... but questions are in fact a very productive way to receive answers. This world's popular notions that life is boring and there is no use looking beyond what is right in front of us are both deconstructed in this breathtaking, heartbreaking, eye-opening, and (for me) life-changing piece of art that reveals the beauty of life and goes a step further in honoring the Provider of it all. I believe its candor could be accessible to anyone willing to go in open-minded: this movie isn't "for" one type of person. Its examination and celebration of life is essential for people of all walks of life, not as a didactic statement to argue them into any camp of mind, but to reveal the beauty around them.

If the world were to give any film a second chance, or at least give it the benefit of the doubt, I would hope it was this one.

I really appreciate it if you read this far. You have no idea.

Psalm 19:1
"The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims His handiwork"

2 Corinthians 4:17-18
"For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."