"The Fountain" - Movie Review

Jackman and Weisz play a pair of lovers in three different time periods, the most comprehensible of which is set in our time. Jackman is Tom Creo, and Weisz is his wife Izzi, who has a brain tumour. Tom, rather than spending time with his dying wife as she'd like, spends his time at the lab trying to find a cure for brain tumours. Our other sets of people are set 500 years before with Queen Isabella (Weisz) of Spain losing her territory to the Inquisition, and Conquistador Jackman who loves her going to Central America to find the Tree of Life for her. The final and weirdest setting is future Jackman in a biosphere bubble space ship on his way to the Xibalba nebula with a tree that represents Weisz's character.

If it sounds weird, well, it is. Very weird. And filmed entirely in a colour palette of white, black, gray, yellow, and brown - which means that Tom and Izzi's house is dark and creepy, an unpleasant side-effect of the chosen colour palette. Some of the cinematography is brilliant, but the limitations are significant and problematic. The actors give it their all, but it comes off more silly and crazy than noble and romantic as I think it was intended to be. I don't regret watching it because it was kind of interesting, but it was kind of a slog to get through and not really worth it.