Knight of Cups (2015)

Review

118min

Genre:       Drama, Romance

Director:    Terrence Malick

Cast:         Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett…and more

Writer:      Terrence Malick

-Synopsis-

An L.A. screenwriter struggling with personal demons, searches for connection and meaning while trying to avoid the pitfalls and excesses of Hollywood’s moral vacuum in this drama from visionary but occasional writer/director Terrence Malick.

We were initially optimistic after seeing the vague and mysterious trailer for ‘Knight of Cups’, which bucked the now too common trend of exposition and narrative spoiling in trailers.

But not long into only the 7th film in a 43 year career, we realised that spoilage was an impossibility as Terrence Malick solidifies his reputation as a self-styled cinematic philosopher and master painter of moving images, at the considerable expense of narrative and character.

The great Christian Bale stars a “Rick”; a Hollywood screenwriter on an emotional “pilgrimage” through his own life and failed past relationships with a cornucopia of very different women, wandering around Los Angeles like an existentialist detective trying to make sense of everything and find an escape out of his own malaise with the modern world.

‘Knight of Cups’ follows a non-linear approximation of a narrative, with past and present flowing into each other and with all the Malick trademarks in play; from the low-angle closeups with a constantly moving camera to the long tracking shots, and dialogue which is rarely in-scene but rather delivered as narration by the characters, often in soliloquy form, allowing the images to keep a steady flow and not interfere with the soundtrack.

When you combine all of this with Malick’s mesmerising visuals, undoubtedly some of the most stunning in modern cinema, the result has a hypnotic quality which gives the impression that you’re watching something distinctly profound… and that’s the problem.

We’re all for unconventional thought-provoking narratives and cinematic pontificating, but there’s only so much legwork you can expect an audience to do over the course of two hours before all the symbolism and religious iconography starts to feel like a pretentious journey to nowhere.

Malick turns his philosophical eye to a pseudo-story with no real sense of time, about a man sleepwalking through an existence corrupted by temptation and the superficiality of modern western living, while striving for a simpler more connected existence. But this “wanderer” is an unrelatable “prince” of a character who has the luxury of taking this journey, while the rest of us are presumably the “zombies” that’ll never break away from this horror-show we call life.

The film’s title is taken from the Latin-suited Tarot card which reflects “Rick’s” characteristics, and other Tarot cards are used as loose chapter titles and reflections of the various women in his life.

When combined with the soundtrack’s underlying exotic “eastern” tones, biblical references and narration, ‘Knight of Cups’ reveals its true nature as a metaphor for the West’s loss of spiritual purpose as it heads into the darkness, away from our “Eastern” roots where the light rises… literally.

We’re no Terrence Malick haters here, being fans in particular of his early career, and neither are we converts to his small but “elite” church of classical philosophical filmmaking. But ‘Knight of Cups’ is a perfect example of how taking a bunch of impressive stylistic and contemplative elements into the craftsman’s forge of the editing room, does not necessarily result in a compelling experience.

In the paraphrased words of Christopher Plummer about his ‘The New World’ director, Malick is an auteur in desperate need of a writer, which is ironic given who ‘Knight of Cups’ is about.

The Bottom Line…

Terrence Malick’s latest existential drama features an impressive cast, typically striking hypnotic visuals and a thin veneer of profundity; but beneath that is a disjointed collection of philosophical musings which make for a tedious cinematic experience that will leave most audiences scratching their heads… and not in a good way.

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Similar films you may like (Home Video)

The Tree of Life (2011)

Writer/director Terrence Malick paints a unique cinematic portrait in this existentialist drama about the meaning of life and our place in the universe, as seen through a middle-aged man’s memories of growing up in 1950s Texas.

Directed by Terrence Malick and starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain among others.

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