The Tree of Life: A Deeply Personal Masterpiece For Roger Ebert

The Tree of Life doesn't have the same cultural footprint as some of the other best films of the 21st century, but it's a moving and beautifully executed portrait of life, just ask Roger Ebert. Terrence Malick has had an up-and-down career when it comes to the reception of his films.

No matter what he has done, though, you can never say he phoned it in. Each one of his movies requires close attention, and even those that don't appear to work still offer something for those who dig into them. The Tree of Life has gone from a divisive masterpiece to a widely regarded classic in only a few years.

The Tree Of Life Is A Sprawling Examination Of The Meaning Of Life

The Tree of Life is a 2011 fantasy drama that sounds like a typical family drama on the surface, but quickly goes in unexpected directions. The story is split across the decades, linked with extended flashbacks. In the present, 2010, Jack O'Brien (Sean Penn) is a successful, though dispirited, architect, estranged from his parents.

His childhood takes up the rest of the film, with Brad Pitt as his stern and hot-tempered father and Jessica Chastain as his nurturing and forgiving mother. Throughout the film, we see how Mr. O'Brien's parenting style clashes with Mrs. O'Brien's, and the tension that it puts on Jack and his siblings.

Sprinkled throughout the film are psychedelic and dreamlike sequences. An asteroid hits the Earth, a dinosaur spares another, and the sun engulfs the planet. Where another film might struggle to hold all these ideas without spilling them, The Tree of Life takes them all and layers them on top of one another to create something breathtaking.

Roger Ebert Was Struggling With Terminal Cancer When He Reviewed The Tree Of Life

The Tree of Life has an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's taken time for the general public to come around to the film, but Roger Ebert was with it from the start. In his review, he said, "There were once several directors who yearned to make no less than a masterpiece, but now there are only a few" (via RogerEbert).

Ebert names Malick as one of these rare few. More than appreciating the film as a triumph, Ebert seems to be astonished by how much he relates to the film, "I don’t know when a film has connected more immediately with my own personal experience." The Tree of Life clearly touched him in a particular way.

In 2011, when he reviewed The Tree of Life, Ebert was two years away from dying from papillary thyroid cancer. The themes of mortality and eternity struck a resonant chord with Ebert, who ends his review with a moving line of his own, "That’s how you grow up. And it all happens in this blink of a lifetime..."