To the Wonder 2013

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: A ramble through the ecstasies of the natural world as experienced or ignored by little people on a giant, gorgeous planet. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: However accomplished Malick's technique might be in some ways, this mostly comes off, especially in the laborious second hour, as visual doodling without focused thematic goals. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: I didn't like the movie at all-found it boring, unintentionally comical, at times even (a word I seldom use) pretentious ... Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: [Malick's] insistence on finding a cinematic idiom that connects beauty to ultimate truth is noble and sincere. But the fine intentions of "To the Wonder" pave a road to puzzlement, not awe. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: To the Wonder feels like generalized woo-woo -- and self-parody. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Years seem to pass between scenes. To be honest, years seem to pass during scenes. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: The film breaks faith with its audience by asking us to care about two profoundly antipathetic characters spouting pseudo-poetic banalities. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Never was a film so visually stunning and so intolerable as To the Wonder. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: Flaws and all, this is ravishing, distrib-worthy work from a filmmaker who hasn't lost his capacity to move and surprise. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Malick persists in refining his style to the barest essentials of sound and image, caring little whether he's out of step with the times. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: A thing of great beauty, but not much more. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: A meditation on love and lost paradise that starts with breathtaking assurance and slowly crumbles into self-parody. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: There's a little too much wonder and not quite enough story in this middling effort from Terrence Malick. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: "To the Wonder" finds Malick pursuing a form of visual storytelling that is closer to chamber music, or symphonic rapture, than conventional film narrative. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Essentially it's an agglomeration of Malick's worst stylistic annoyances. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: There's little doubt this film will deepen, open up with a second viewing. But to what end? Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Mostly, it's solemn intonations of bad poetry over open-field twirling scenes and long serious looks of love, tenderness and cosmic understanding. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The film's style is ethereal and incantatory, with a soundtrack woven out of whispers and classical music; if anything, it makes Malick's The Tree of Life look like a Noel Coward play. Read more

Jordan Hoffman, Film.com: I recommend it for anyone who'll get a buzz out of hearing a line like "what is this love that loves us?" spoken in French. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: There is no new ground, really, the distinction is in the way Malick covers it with glorious imagery, symphonies of sound, a cacophony of moods. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The movie plays like an undercooked pie that hasn't had enough time to cool and settle. Read more

Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic: What is most affecting is Malick's intent. He plainly devised the story to give him a series of panels for the expression of feeling. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: "To the Wonder" is a trailer for itself, although it could be mistaken for a high-end perfume commercial ... Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: The individually ravishing but loosely bound shots reduce whatever weight the story might have to the trivial narcissism of Caribbean-travel commercials. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It serves up real emotion, and striking grace. It has moments of simple beauty, and thorny questions. Read more

Mark Jenkins, NPR: Pretty but inert, To the Wonder is a vaporous mystery wrapped in a gauzy enigma - a cinematic riddle that'll appeal principally to those eager for another piece, however tiny, of the puzzle that is Terrence Malick. Read more

Linda Holmes, NPR: There's nothing to "get." There really isn't. It's a story about a troubled relationship that, for me, ultimately chokes on its own self-conscious flourishes. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: It feels like a high-end perfume ad. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: "It's like watching grass grow" isn't really a riposte to the stately, placid, dreamlike "To the Wonder." You might as well complain that Quentin Tarantino films are violent. Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: Love is a many-splendored thing, except when it isn't in To the Wonder, a wispy romantic movie about the death of a romance. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: It's more like a parody than cinematic poetry. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: There are moments of pure poetry in the movie but the production as a whole seems overlong and repetitive and takes a detour or two that distract from the aching beauty of the central story. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: We should not be exiting a Terrence Malick movie with a shrug, but there it is. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: [Many will] be dissatisfied by a film that would rather evoke than supply. I understand that, and I think Terrence Malick does, too. But here he has attempted to reach more deeply than that: to reach beneath the surface, and find the soul in need. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Film genius to miss the mark. Case in point: Terrence Malick's To the Wonder, a beautifully empty exercise that - so glacial is the pace - makes Malick's Tree of Life look like G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: The enigmatic spell of enchantment it casts is a work of complex artistry, and the sneering reviews say more about the critics, I am afraid, than about the film or its director. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: A film of simple themes, minimal dialogue and eloquent imagery. Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Does it deserve to be seen? Absolutely. Just be aware of what you're getting into. Read more

Noah Gittell, The Atlantic: Malick is employing his usual style of montage and voice-over narration but in a new, contemporary setting that makes Wonder feel like his most vital work in years. Read more

Michael Posner, Globe and Mail: Chary of exposition, meagre of plot, derisory of dialogue, indifferent to comprehension, it's a project that veers perilously close to self-parody. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: To the Wonder suggests the creep of doubt and possibly even despair into Malick's cosmic questing. This may not be as profound as he intends - to be human is to forever question - but it makes for stimulating viewing. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: There's a phoniness to the film's people and places that keeps us at a fatal distance from the big ideas with which 'To the Wonder' seeks to engage us. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: To the Wonder is arty for sure, but for the first time, its maker is working with anxieties we all feel. Let's hope this Malick sticks around for a while. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: To the Wonder might be more experimental, but it's still all Malick, a filmmaker who can't see the forest for the craftsmanship. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: The cinematography here is enough to make you swoon. Would that the story were equally compelling. Read more