Knight of Cups

Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography is easily the best thing about Terrence Malick's latest film, which is often beautiful to look at but otherwise comes across as an impressionistic, drearily pretentious portrait of malaise, ennui, and angst. Christian Bale stars as Rick, a burned-out Hollywood screenwriter who wanders around Los Angeles—with a side trip to Vegas to add some visual pizzazz—depressed about the trajectory of his life. In fragmentary sequences presented in random order, Rick tries to reconnect with his troubled brother (Wes Bentley) and grizzled father (Brian Dennehy), who are both tormented by unhappy memories, while also encountering a series of women (played by Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Imogen Poots, Freida Pinto, and Teresa Palmer) who apparently represent different aspects of his psyche. Malick's inspiration appears to have been Fellini's 8½, but Knight of Cups utterly lacks Fellini's hallucinatory brilliance. Instead, Malick strains to impose meaning on the chaos with erudite references—to John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, to an ancient fable about a prince who falls into a deep slumber while searching for a perfect pearl, and to various tarot cards—but these only come across as desperate. Knight of Cups conveys little beyond the banal notion that we are all lost and searching for fulfillment as human beings in a universe of awe and beauty—a message that is repeated over and over again, resulting in more exhaustion than enlightenment. A huge disappointment, this is not a necessary purchase. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include a “making-of” featurette (16 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a small extras package for a visually beautiful but dramatically empty film.] (F. Swietek)