“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth... when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” Such is the Old Testament query that prefaces Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, arguably the elusive master's most thought-provoking – and certainly his most artistically ambitious – effort to date; a flawed, painterly masterpiece that explores in broad, bold strokes mankind's search for God and the fluid relation between Nature and Grace.
The aforementioned question, posed by God to the long-suffering Job, seems to make the point that one man's tribulations are trivial, petty even, in the grand scheme of things; a mere thread in the pattern of the grand design (to paraphrase Stephen Schwartz). Initially, this line of thought appears to be Malick's driving principle. He introduces us to his story's everyman incarnations of Job, the O'Brien family. The sweet mother (Jessica Chastain) and strict father (Brad Pitt) mourn the passing of their 19-year-old son. We also meet their eldest son Jack some decades later (played here by Sean Penn) reflecting on the anniversary of his brother's death. It is here that Malick proposes, perhaps facetiously, that one's life takes either the path of Grace – loving, gentle, and clearly represented in the form of the O'Brien matriarch – or Nature – raw, pure, and clearly represented in the form of the O'Brien patriarch. Where does Jack fit in? Grace? Nature? Oddly enough, the reactions of the O'Brien parents to the news of their son's death are contradictory to Malick's designations, whereby it's Mrs. O'Brien who collapses with natural, heart-wrenching agony, while Mr. O'Brien adopts a more silent, filtered sorrow. Are Grace and Nature so cut and dry?
