February Film Club

Hey everybody!  Thank you to everyone who made it out for Logan Lucky and of course, a big thank you to everyone who brought snacks to share, you are always appreciated!

For the month of February I generally show something along the lines of a romance in honor of Valentine's Day, and this month I've decided to show Terrence Malick's To the Wonder.

To the Wonder is a 2012 American experimental romantic drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick and starring Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams, and Javier Bardem.  Filmed in Oklahoma and Paris, the film chronicles a couple who, after falling in love in Paris, struggle to keep their relationship from falling apart after moving to the United States.

The film received mixed reviews from critics.  It holds a 46% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 172 reviews.  To the Wonder was the final film reviewed by Roger Ebert prior to his death on April 4, 2013.  He awarded it 3.5/4 stars saying this in his review, "A more conventional film would have assigned a plot to these characters and made their motivations more clear.  Malick, who is surely one of the most romantic and spiritual of filmmakers, appears almost naked here before his audience, a man not able to conceal the depth of his vision. 'Well,' I asked myself, "why not?"  Why must a film explain everything?  Why must every motivation be spelled out?  Aren't many films fundamentally the same film, with only the specifics changed?  Aren't many of them telling the same story?  Seeking perfection, we see what our dreams and hopes might look like.  We realize they come as a gift through no power of our own, and if we lose them, isn't that almost worse than never having had them in the first place?  There will be many who find To the Wonder elusive and too effervescent.  They'll be dissatisfied by a film that would rather evoke than supply.  I understand that, and I think Terrence Malick does, too.  But here he has attempted to reach more deeply than that: to reach beneath the surface, and find the soul in need."

I hope you can make it out to this interesting and thought provoking film!

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTAzcTZTY1g