Timed out
Deborah Ross The Fountain 12a, Nationwide (but don't bother) This week I meant to see Peter O'Toole in Venus, which is said to be really good, but I messed up the screening times and so didn't. I know, I know, I'm just so dumb. Should you wish to send me into the corner in a pointy hat with a big 'D' on it I will not resist. On the other hand, I had to see The Fountain instead, so I think I could argue that I've been punished already. Big time.
This film is balderdash. Further, it is time-travelling, incoherent, new-agey, flatulent, tedious balderdash with absurd lines like: `Will you deliver Spain from bondage?' The reply is not: 'What, now? When I've got a cake in the oven?' which is a shame, as it would have been a better line than: 'Yes, my queen. I will save Spain from bondage.' It's written and directed by Darren Aronofsky, who made Requiem for a Dream, that dizzying epic about drugblighted lives, so you'd think it would have some redeeming features, but it doesn't. Even Ellen Burstyn, one of my favourite actresses of all time, and who has a small part in this, looks like she'd rather be somewhere else. Anywhere. Even in the queue at Ikea during sale time. Even on Lembit Opik's knee as his Cheeky Girl sits on the other.
I don't understand how films like this get made. Did the pitch go: 'I'd like to make a film, set in a variety of epochs, with Hugh Jackman being crap in all of them, plus it'll have a terrible script, a soundtrack featuring that dreary music you get down the aromatherapist and, to top it all — you're really going to like this — it'll be boring as hell, vacuous in its portentousness and utterly incoherent!' I have no idea what this film is about, although it appears to be somehow tied up with the search for eternal life, which is ironic because if ever there were an argument for euthanasia, this is it. This is the kind of film that almost begs to be put out of its misery.
The plot, such as it is, travels between 16th-century Spain, the present day and the 26th century with Hugh Jackman playing 'Tommy' in each. He is either Tommy the conquistador or Tommy the modernday doctor or Tommy the astronaut who has a bald head and sits in a lotus position and goes round space in a bubble. And the space isn't even very good. It looks as if the production people booked an hour at the London Planetarium. There is one bit where he starts doing t'ai chi against the stars which is so risible I actually don't know where to look, so I look at the chap next to me, a reviewer whose sigh-ometer I trust. A few sighs means the movie is OK, lots of sighs means it's not that OK. He sighs non-stop. It's like sitting next to a balloon that is taking 97 minutes to deflate.
But there is not just Tommy. There is also Izzy (Rachel Weisz). Izzy is either the Queen of Spain or Tommy's dying wife or just there, in a little white hat, looking absolutely radiant. I should suffer from cancer and look so radiant. I should not suffer from cancer and look so radiant. Anyway, in each epoch the search is for `the tree of life'. The conquistador needs to find it to save his queen. The doctor needs to find it to save his wife. The astronaut needs it to bring his beloved back. The action pitches from Mayan witch doctors through to modern hospitals and then spacewards. It chops and changes through time so much I found I wanted to shout, 'Enough, already, with the chopping and changing. Let's just stay in one place for a while.' I also wanted to shout, 'Could someone please put a light on?' This movie is, literally, very dark. And, 'Turn that music off. Please!'
Maybe this film will speak to you. Maybe it's full of the kind of Judaeo–Christian and Buddhist symbolism I just don't get, being as dumb as I am. But the thing is, you find you just don't care about anyone in this film — do I care if Izzy dies? Nope, not a bit. In the end, I think it's a film about accepting death, which is pretty neat, as we all know that anyway. Actually, I did learn one thing from this movie. And that is? That I must look carefully at screening times from now on. I must look very, very carefully indeed.
Previous page
