The Sea of Trees

Director Gus Van Sant's latest is all about testing the limits of coincidence and believability. Half of the movie is shot in the notorious Japanese “suicide forest” near Mount Fuji (hence, the “sea of trees”), where brilliant mathematics professor Arthur Brennan (Matthew McConaughey) travels in order to take his life by overdosing on unidentified prescription medication. His plans are thwarted, however, when he spots Japanese businessman Nakamura (Ken Watanabe) staggering around the forest looking for an exit. This opportunity to help gives Brennan new hope, and the film begins to flash back and forth between the unfortunate pair's perilous trek to find a path out of the forest and a series of trite domestic scenes featuring Brennan and his beautiful but emasculating alcoholic wife (Naomi Watts). Van Sant switches between Brennan and Nakamura's man vs. nature ordeal and a man vs. nagging wife narrative that takes its sweet time in explaining how Brennan became suicidal. Although Brennan and Nakamura's fight to survive the elements plays out like an overblown Deliverance endurance test (minus canoes and rapist hillbillies), the road to Brennan's redemption is the stuff of bad B-movie melodrama. Optional. (M. Sandlin)