Review: The New World

Rated PG-13 | 135 mins

IMDB Info

I’ve never been much of a camper or a hiker, but before Terrence Malick’s latest bore-a-palooza, The New World, I was never actually disdainful towards nature. There’s no doubt the British locales the writer/director uses to double for Jamestown, U.S.A. are beautiful—the movie tells a version of the Pilgrim’s settlement of America/the John Smith and Pocahontas story—but that doesn’t excuse the fact that he is far too obsessed with them for his own good. During The New World’s duration, the audience will spend a given two-minute period listening to a random character’s voice-over as trees sway in the wind onscreen. And that’s if their lucky. Sometimes Malick’s infatuations overcome him so much that he takes the liberty of showing us the oh-so-delightful sight of a pool of water forming ripples as a character dips their foot into it. Let’s be honest here: I’m all for experimental, challenging art as much as the next guy, but there’s a line in which the pretensions of such become nothing but pretentious, rather than at all thought-provoking. Malick doesn’t just cross this line; he leaps over it. For all I know, he could have more profound ideas than any other living filmmaker, but The New World has left me no choice but to dismiss them because of his drying-paint-style execution.

In all fairness, the film does have one remarkable element, the performance of sixteen-year-old Q'Orianka Kilcher. She injects an amazing amount of life into the movie as Pocahontas, giving a near-perfect performance to encapsulate the love-triangle that forms between her character, John Smith (Colin Farrell), and John Rolfe (Christian Bale). Kilcher’s passionate work actually keeps the film afloat long enough for the viewer to immerse their self in the first act or so, before tiring of Malick’s obsessive filmmaking tendencies. However, after 135 minutes of sheer disregard for the audience’s senses, she’s unfortunately the last thing that the audience is left thinking about. Mr. Malick: I love to watch the filmmaker break the rules of traditional storytelling, but if you’re going to keep doing so, at least learn to do it right.