The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life (2011) is Terrence Malick's meditative drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain and Sean Penn lead the cast.

Texas, the 1950s. A boy named Jack grows up pulled between two forces. His mother is grace and forgiveness; his father drills his sons in the harder law of getting ahead, of putting yourself first. Then loss enters the house, and the clear world of childhood breaks into questions a child cannot answer. As a grown man, lost among the glass towers of the city, Jack keeps turning those questions over.

Malick refuses straight chronology. He builds the film from flickers of memory, whispered voiceover, and shots where a quiet supper scene suddenly opens onto the birth of the cosmos itself. It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and split audiences down the middle: some walked out moved beyond words, others simply walked out. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki shot much of it handheld, chasing daylight like a living thing. Stream The Tree of Life (2011) online on iFILM.