The Fountain Review
by [email protected] (dnb AT dca DOT net)December 6th, 2006
THE FOUNTAIN
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2006 David N. Butterworth
** (out of ****)
Tommy Creo (Hugh Jackman) is a skilled neurosurgeon performing a little under-the-table animal experimentation in an effort to find a cure for the common cancer. "Death is a disease. There *is* a cure. And I *will* find it," he intones defiantly, not to be discouraged from this noblest of goals. His wife Izzy (Rachel Weisz) suffers a cancerous brain tumor and Tommy thereby feels his working late at the office is more than justified. His boss, Dr. Lillian Gruzetti (Ellen Burstyn), keeps telling the brain doc to go home, to be with his wife in her (waning) hours of need, but that's partly because Gruzetti's not convinced Tommy's research is going anywhere. Until, that is, Tommy remembers some plant extract his brain team once discovered in the dense Mayan jungles of New Spain and, spontaneously injecting it into a hapless gibbon's throbbing medulla oblongata, watches on "the first step on the road to awe" as the cancerous growth slowly retreats.
Meanwhile/previously/a thousand years hence a dashing conquistador (Hugh Jackman in a fetching combed marrion) searches the Amazon basin for the fabled "tree of life," that which once grew in the Garden of Eden and can grant all those who drink of its sap eternal life. His boss, Queen Isabella of Spain (Rachel Weisz), has promised the conquistador that, should he find this tree, then the two of them shall partake of its wondrous gifts together and henceforth be inseparable throughout all eternity.
Meanwhile/now/sometime in the future a baldheaded dreamer (Hugh Jackman, looking not unlike Kevin Spacey in some scenes, Jeff Goldblum in others) assumes the lotus position, bounces about in a snow globe, eats bark, tattoos himself with the nib of a calligrapher's pen, talks to trees, and generally engages in a lot of silly poppycock while being partied by an art director (make that *four* art directors--French ones) not afraid to go a wee bit over budget.
Thus director Darren Aronofsky ("Pi," "Requiem for a Dream") juggles three separate-but-interweaving storylines in his latest picture, a metaphysical journey (of sorts) that engages as often as it wearies. It's a hard sell that's for sure, this action/romance/sci- fi/drama, unique and lovely to look at one minute, painfully pretentious the next. Any one of these chapters might have worked better in their entirety (save perhaps for the Xibalban dreamscape visual feasts; I was reminded of Tarsem Singh's "The Cell" with Jennifer Lopez), but spliced together they demand more attention than is necessarily appropriate.
Still, there's no knocking the performances. Weisz brings good grace and tenderness to the role of Izzy--you'd expect nothing less from the Oscar(r)-winning co-star of "The Constant Gardener"--but what you might not expect is Jackman's sincere, commanding approach to the material. Aronofsky might overplay his hand once too often but Jackman rarely does. He's convincing and engaging, hard edged and vulnerable, not afraid to take risks. Adding to the whole--and wholly strange-- experience is Clint Mansell's memorable score: it's both compelling and evocative, a third player in every sense.
Many will extract real meaning from the film; others will simply call its bluff and walk away empty headed. I personally would much prefer to revisit Jackman and Weisz in a project a little more worthy of their obvious talents, a little more worthy than "The Fountain."
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David N. Butterworth
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
