First Hit: I was left wondering.
My guess is that if you were in Terrence Malick’s mind or maybe on the set, you “got” this film.
I can tell you, I’ve seen more films than maybe 98% of the population and conceptually I’m not sluggish about “getting” what the point is. Therefore, I don't think this film worked.
The power of love as it expresses itself in a relationship and between people, isn’t well served here without dialogue. OK, I’ll correct myself there is occasional muffled dialogue and I will say when it was there I found myself straining to get more so I could engage myself with the story.
Neil (Ben Affleck) spent most of the time with his mouth semi-open which gave me the sense that he was in disbelief about the behavior of his girlfriend Marina (Olga Kurylenko) who had wild mood swings. Then Neil's old girlfriend Jane (Rachel McAdams) appears on the scene and Neil likes her but ....
This film was too long, lacked a way to connect to the audience and created little vision for an audience. On another level – the pictures of the midwest were wonderful and visually well done.
Affleck was mostly silent with his mouth open emoting little. Kurylenko was interesting to watch go from crazy like behavior to loving like behavior – she did troubled well however there was little context for either realms. McAdams was the character where I wanted Affleck’s character to land because there seemed to be joy and peace. But as we know people are rarely satisfied. Javier Bardem didn’t fit as a priest to which Marina was linked. Malick didn’t really write much of a screenplay but he must have done a bunch story boards that he hoped would tell his version of love. Malik also directed this effort and the tedium was apparent.
Overall: This isn’t worth watching.