The opening frame of The Fountain is directly taken out of the book that holds the most clarity and truth – the Bible.
As the movie goes back and forth between the life of a doctor with a sick wife, a conquistador trying to find the fountain of youth and some strange spacey scenery filled with meditation and a pretty dead-looking “tree of life,” the stories get so complex that the viewer finds it as hard to follow as this sentence.
Though the movie is advertised as “A love story to span the centuries,” where the characters fall in love over and over again by gaining strength from the fountain of life, it is only the story of a sick woman with a husband who wants to save her life by finding the cure to her disease by operating on monkeys.
With all of that fascinating stuff going on, how could you not enjoy it? Sigh.
Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz are husband and wife in this twisted saga directed by Darren Aronofsky. It is very hard to decipher whether Tom (Jackman) is going crazy or is attempting to mentally do what Izzi (Weisz) asks him to do by finishing her Spanish- inquisition, Mayan- god, search-for- immortality novel.
When the movie was over, every audience member either quickly exited in disgust or sat in astonishment over the fact that they paid $10 for a movie that didn’t even give you closure.
So if you would like to join Izzi on her quest for Sheballa, the fountain of life, which is actually a tree, and walk alongside Tom as he treks through the Spanish jungles and floats into a nebula hearing the voice of a dying Izzi, be my guest.
Don’t let me stop your fun and utter confusion. That is, if you like that sort of thing.