The Fountain

The Fountain is an extremely ambitious film, penned and directed by Darren Aronofsky. It stars Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz in what (at first glance) appears to be three interconnected stories that are separated by hundreds of years. However, The Fountain is really just one story, and the other two are manifestations of thought within the book of Weisz's character. Tommy (Jackman) is a neuroscientist. He's married to a dying Izzi (Weisz). She's writing a book while dying entitled: The Fountain  about a spanish conquistador. We see some of these scenes with Jackman also playing the conquistador. The conquistador is on the search for the fountain of youth. In some ways, so is Tommy. Tommy is unable to accept death, and although he is distant with Izzi, he is fully involved in his work: which he believes will cure death. There's a lot of similarities between the stories, and then there's the third, which makes little sense. It is just a bald and dramatic Jackman who has seemed to have unlocked immortality. The Fountain is an endlessly complicated film. It reminded me of 2001 in the way it is open to interpretation. Despite the emotion that Jackman and Aronofsky have brought to the film, it is hard to describe its flaws and anything but missteps. For that is what it does. It uses light at the wrong times, it goes from trenchantly sad to a spectacle in an instant, it is too brisk and fails to take its time. Mostly, it disappoints, for greatness is perhaps within it. It's finally a good film because of how interesting it is, but it could have been much more.
The Fountain: ✰✰✰