I have been sitting on this film for 2 and ½ weeks and still cannot figure out how I want to go about my review, so instead of letting a difficult task waste away I am going to forge forward. In the 17 days that I have been thinking about this film I have had several contrasting thoughts but what it comes down to truly is, did I like this film? My answer to that is I still do not know how I feel about the film but I will try to express my thoughts as clear as I can.

The Tree of Life follows a family from the beginning to the end. By beginning I do not mean from start of their union as a family, I mean from the Earths creation. Big bang, cell division, dinosaurs, evolution, you catch my drift? So imagine you are sitting there watching a movie about a family and all of a sudden the television turns you to a channel airing Walking With Dinosaurs, Carl Sagan's Cosmos and Through the Wormhole but you have an inability to change the channel. Then after about 40 minutes of that you beam back to the movie you were watching about a family and you say to yourself, "wow, it almost seems like they were connected." Welcome to the world of Malick and his film The Tree of Life.

As a movie it lacked dialogue, direction, and continuity so if you wanted to see something engaging on tangible level this film will anger you, but you should have known that going in, Malick does not care what you think, nor should he. His movies are never to please an audience but to try to stop himself from cutting his own ear off, it is a release for him, not for you or me.

As a work of art it was beautifully shot, thought-provoking and spiritual, so if you wanted to be engaged in an intangible tour of a man's psyche with picturesque visions and dreamlike shots of life that kind of go together but often veer off like the mind of a toddler then this film will blow you away.

I am no Malick aficionado; I have seen Badlands which I loved and A Thin Red Line which I also loved but have yet to see Days of Heaven, his most critically acclaimed film, and his 2005 film The New World. What I do know or think is that Malick's films are often more about the art than the content, more about a vision than a message, and more about himself than the audience.

The Tree of Life is a film that asks the questions but does not have the answers; there are no real beginnings or ends, just a myriad of themes beautifully shot within the journey of a family, from creation to death. It is not going to be for everyone but then again it was not meant for everyone.

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Many things have and will be said about this movie. Regardless of the easy critics: it's boring, there's no action, it's self-indulging, etc.., I would only add this. There will always be 2 kinds of people (whether they are film-goers, tourists, readers..): the ones who like to "recognize" things (the same stories being told, who is the hero, who is the villain? the same places to go to, the same food...) and the ones who like to discover new things. As to the film, why don't you try it? How many films have you seen that take your hand and take you to a place you've never been before? On the contrary how often do you understand everything from the very first minutes of a movie? who is going to marry who, who is the bad guy, who's going to betray, will there be a happy end? Aren't you ever fed up with this? Try and see The Tree Of Life. It's about growing up in a family. It's about seeing the world through children's eyes. It's a very American story, and what it's like to be torn between religion, ideals and the lust for success and power and money. It's about betrayal by the people you trust. It's about love.

You may not like it but at least you'll have tried. Be curious! Stop being cinematographically correct.

Where to even begin with The Tree of Life? Any release from Terence Malick is highly anticipated because, let's face it, "prolific" is not exactly his middle-name. Malick's output of 5 Films in the best part of thirty years makes Stanley Kubrick look like a Roger Corman protégé. Ostensibly, The Tree of Life is the story of a young family growing up in 1950′s Texas. Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain are the parents of three boys living the suburban life. Whilst, Sean Penn plays the grown up older son reminiscing over these times. Here is where any attempt to continue with a plot synopsis collapses under the weight of the films impressionistic non-linear structure.

The Tree of life is a fundamentally polarising experience of the highest order. There will be those who view it as a mess. A sentimental, art-farty shambles. A two hour long perfume commercial stuffed with "meaningful" abstract shots and scenes. A melange of whispered preposterous platitudes and pretentious, "meaning of life" and infuriatingly glib sentimentality. They'll think it's rambling, mawkish, misjudged, ill-disciplined, lacking any narrative cohesion and packed with the kind of heavy handed-symbolism best left to a 6th form Emo's poetry. They'll think it's the work of a director who's lost the plot up his own arse and submitted a self-indulgent soufflé of a film that'll stretch their patience to breaking point. They will hate it. And, they'll have a point.

There will be others though who view The Tree of Life as an elegiac meditation on memory and grief. They'll think it's a lyrical and visual poem. They'll see discussions of familial remembrance, the friction between father and son, the birth of morality, the Universe and universal truths. They'll see a beautifully meandering and melancholic ode that eschews traditional narrative for a sumptuous visual lyricism that washes over them. They'll be prepared to lie-back and let it take them to more melancholic and meditative shores. They will love it. And, they'll have a point.

Guess, which side I fell on.