For a film about mortality, director Darren Aronofsky's science-fiction epic "The Fountain" doesn't seem all that concerned with humanity. It's all allegory, using characters to symbolize emotions rather than embody them; the film's constant shifts in time and place left me with no time to connect with any of them.
That said, Aronofsky's visual flair is like a concrete patch on "The Fountain's" flawed foundation. See it to see something you've never seen before — frames of this beautiful film should be hanging in a gallery.
"The Fountain" offers three storylines that parallel and parrot each other. It begins in the 16th century, as a conquistador (Hugh Jackman) has been commissioned by his Queen (Rachel Weisz) to travel to the New World and find the Tree of Life, whose sap is believed to grant immortality. (How this will end an insurgency within Spain is beyond me, but who's to argue with a queen that looks like Rachel Weisz?)
The tree is also in the 26th century, clinging to existence in a large bubble-like spaceship inhabited by a scientist named Tommy Creo (Jackman again, sans hair) who spends his days meditating, self-tattooing, and hallucinating about a lost love.
We meet the scientist and the tree again in the present day, as he desperately uses it in experimental cancer research. Tommy's work is quite time-sensitive: his wife Isabel (Weisz, sans most of her hair) is dying from a brain tumor.
He is driven by love to immerse himself in his work, and driven away from Isabel out of fear of the inevitable; she is on a journey to acceptation of her fate and its consequences, and he can't bear to let her go. It's only when she gives him an incomplete novel she's been writing, a testament called "The Fountain," that Tommy begins to reconcile with Isabel's pleas for understanding. Aronofsky uses that book to tie the trio of stories together in a fascinating way, repeating objects, images and themes to give the film a lyrical clarity.
Jackman's always been a better physical actor than an emotive one, and his best scenes in "The Fountain" play to that strength. Weisz manages two great performances, capturing the Queen's steely determination and Isabel's discerning warmth.
"The Fountain" deserves your attention for its galaxy of inventive visual effects and startling cinematography. They'll make you forgive the fact that these stories would have the emotional depth they lack had they been left in the detailed pages of Isabel's novel.
<1b>— Greg Wyshynski