So I’d nearly forgotten to give a followup regarding The Fountain.

The movie is visually arresting, but I think ultimately it is only
moderately good. Hugh Jackman give a surprisingly varied performance,
but Rachel Weisz seemed miscast.

The basic arrangement of the movie is that Jackman and Weisz play
characters in three different eras who each may actually be the same
person somehow connected through time. In the earliest era Jackman
plays a Spanish conquistador and Weisz is the Queen. The quest
revolves around the search for the tree of life in the new world. In
the current era Jackman plays a doctor/scientist/researcher who is
struggling to find a cure for his wife’s brain tumor. His wife is of
course played by Weisz. In the future Jackman and the tree of life
are in some sort of spaceship that appears as a clear sphere floating
in space towards a dying star, while Jackman’s character has dreams
or memories of Weisz’ character.

All three of these stories wrap around each other, and sometimes it
almost seems as though characters are finishing the sentence or
waking from the dream that one of the characters in the other era was
experiencing.

The themes of the movie revolve around ideas of death, eternal life,
fiction as reality, time as not strictly linear, and man often as
prideful and reckless – yet with a sense of hope that he could learn.
All of these are fine ideas to toy with, but there are almost too
many here, and somehow it all ends seeming somewhat superficial. I
think that this sense comes from a lack of connection with the
characters, particularly the ones from the present era. I feel like
the stories of the earlier and later eras are built around the
current one, and it is the current one that needed to build better
the relationship between Jackman and Weisz that defined the single-
mindedness that Jackman’s character personifies.

So, all in all, I’m glad I saw it, and I look forward to more movies
by this director – Darren Aronofsky, but I don’t think this is one I
would refer to casual movie watchers. This is one more for the hard
core movie fan who must see every film by their favorite director or
actor.