Before I start reviewing To The Wonder, I want to offer my artsy fartsy credentials. I watched and enjoyed The Turin House, a foreign black and white film with very little dialogue or action confined to a small space that slowly devolves into nothingness so I don’t really need a conventional plot to get me going. To The Wonder is a Terrence Malick film with four major characters, and we are privy to their internal thoughts. If I put my intellectual hat on, it is a hauntingly beautiful visual metaphor with an impressionistic, unconventional narrative about love. If I take it off and just want to sit, watch and enjoy a movie, it is a pretentious Calvin Klein ad that went on way too long and needed to hire a better actor than Ben Affleck to help carry the film.
To The Wonder’s superficial story is about an American man and a French woman who fall in and out of love. He wavers between her and his past love, but fails to fully reciprocate and commit to either. He is a faithless man—literally and spiritually. A generous Christian reading of the story would suggest that romantic love is a metaphor for humanity’s relationship to God. Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” If you think that I’m reaching, remember there is a fourth character whom I have not mentioned yet, a Catholic priest, played by Javier Bardem. Real talk: everyone would go to church. I’d pretend to be Catholic daily. Look at God work! Anyway, he is the opposite of Affleck’s character-a man of faith, commitment and God, but he feels no love. He is literally Christ’s bride and like Affleck’s women, played by Olga Kurylenko, who is actually a good actor, but her career is not going so great, and Rachel McAdams, they eventually fall out of love with their beloved because they don’t feel the love. Eventually by losing love, Affleck’s character grows closer to God.
To The Wonder seems to suggest that our lives can be an echo of God’s love on Earth. The landscape reflects the emotional health of the people, and the narration reflects the environment. The harmony of people with the land and each other varies as the story progresses. God is the light, and the light seeks the characters. Emotion is depicted through imagery, and I hated every minute of it. If I operated under the mistaken belief that a relationship with God or others was anything like this, I would run screaming in the opposite direction. I didn’t like any of the characters AT ALL. There was so much frolicking in the sun in open areas that it made me sick. You are grown ass adults acting like a bunch of children who haven’t learned how to use their words yet. I have seen exactly one couple do this and thought it was cute so there is something wrong with your frolicking. If they existed in real life, I would not brunch with them. I feel slightly bad writing this because apparently Malick’s movie is semi-autobiographical. Oh well. Love does not have to be like this!
Dear men, guess what happens when you fall in love with a woman in her natural habitat then move her to yours. She changes and may become clingy because you’re her only human contact. You may not like how she changes. While it seems like a no brainer, and I am not speaking from experience since I have never been to France or Oklahoma, I’m thinking that life is possibly better in France than Oklahoma so it is going to be a way harder adjustment than if you moved to a better location. What do you expect!?! Idjit! I’m beginning to think that no one ever told men any of these harsh truths because this is actually a thing that I’ve seen quite frequently. Here is an idea. Remember how you were happy in your environment. Maybe it is you who should stay in her environment. Don’t you like this version of you? Aren’t you happier here?
Dear Olga’s character, you are a single mom who has been around the bad guy block, and you are acting brand new. Yes, Affleck is hot, but if you make someone else responsible for your emotions, hot or not, then you are dumb and not growing. You are clingy and needy. Life tip: if you must break things, break something cheap like a cup, a glass or a plate, not the TV! Never the TV! Possible sign: if you are getting married, and the only witnesses available are prisoners, maybe don’t. Your daughter is smarter than you, and I’m glad that she is living with her daddy. I’d like to introduce you to this amazing product called a condom, which protects you from sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies. Also get therapy because you may be the crazy bitch that all these guys keep talking about. I’m not saying that you’re crazy. I just think that you were taught some unhealthy coping mechanisms that are no longer serving you, and you can have a better life. Side note: a woman’s highest calling isn’t to be a wife. Remember when you easily ditched that antiquated notion that a woman’s highest duty is as a mother. I want you to keep going on that journey and ask yourself why you are afraid of being alone with yourself. I think that you may have bad friends. Go home, which is not Oklahoma.
Dear Ben & Olga’s characters, when do you plan to actually make your home a home? There is no furniture. You aren’t in college!
Dear ex-girlfriend, you know the Bible. Here is a gem, “As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly,” Proverbs 26:11. If you must, because Affleck is fine, look at it as a rebound, hook up and expect nothing more, but it didn’t work out for a reason. Also don’t you have any friends that warned you that he had a woman and child living in his house a mere few seconds before you reconnected. Alarm bells! He is the kind of guy who will drag a woman across the ocean, halfway across the country then not seem too perturbed when she has to go back. He is a thoughtless taker who only cares about his own comfort! You just got out of one bad relationship.
Dear Javier Bardem, you are hot and an amazing actor. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen you do a bad job. Please carry on and say hi to Penelope for me. Wow, you’re beautiful and talented people. You are literally better than the rest of us.
If you adore Malick’s movies or are a fan of Kurylenko’s work, definitely see To The Wonder otherwise run the other way and save yourself a ton of eye rolls and exasperated sighs at the antics of these juvenile adults in this melodrama that barely passes as high art. Twilight was less annoying.