It should be said upfront that if any of Terrence Malick’s films have turned you off— especially due to those features for which Malick is known for being the filmmaker that he is—Knight of Cups will be a sure disappointment. It is a movie which bears all the marks of his distinctive filmmaking, both good and bad.
The film centers around Rick (Christian Bale), a successful screenwriter, and more importantly for the narrative, a man deeply lost and jaded as he goes through a journey searching for love and meaning (a character not unlike that played by Sean Penn in The Tree of Life, which, more on that below). The setting is primarily the glitzy, opulent parts of Los Angeles, where we see Rick engage in myriad relationships with disparate, but all beautiful, women, as well as confront deteriorated ones from the past. His ex-wife, Nancy, is played by a subdued Cate Blanchett, while Natalie Portman plays Elizabeth, a woman with whom Rick has had an affair.
Rick’s immediate family forms yet another sphere of his disjointed life. Brian Dennehy plays Rick’s cold and disgruntled father, a worn-out man with a history of subservient ambition, but possessing perhaps an untapped reservoir of quiet love and remorse. Wes Bentley plays Rick’s brother, a heartfelt man with a chaotic past of drug use.
If all of the above sounds like at least the ingredients for a decently solid plot, it is, bearing in mind that it is still a Terrence Malick film. We wander as Rick wanders, transported to and from a number of cerebral locations — and more often than not without any precise chronological connection. This is, however, fitting to the story. The title of the film takes its name from a tarot card which symbolizes both opportunities and love but also deep disillusionment. Malick’s film also finds inspiration from John Bunyan’s spiritual allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress. Rick’s story is very much that of a journey, and like virtually any journey it can hardly be expected to show itself as neat and coherent.
In thinking about Knight of Cups with respect to Malick’s filmography, there are some interesting, albeit perplexing, things about this film. As mentioned above, there are strong and obvious similarities between Penn’s character from The Tree of Life (2011) and the character which Bale plays here. Both have lost a brother, both struggle to connect with a stern, overly-driven father, both wander aimlessly, desperate to find something real and true in the world around them (and in themselves). Strong similarities also exist in the ways in which these psychological aspects are visually conveyed and symbolized. Many of the scenes in which Bale is seen solitarily walking among the rocks, for instance, look just about identical to those of Penn’s scenes, and I’m given to wonder Malick’s motive for this. As an admirer of the Tree of Life, I thought many of the shots in it were masterfully paired with the state of the characters’ minds as well as the point in the narrative. Indeed some of the shots feels so precise and perfect that it seems somehow wrong for them to show up in a different film and for different characters, even if there are intentional parallels between the films.
This isn’t something that necessarily detracts from the film (and certainly other viewers may feel differently about the extent and significance of the congruities). But given that one of Malick’s most splendid strengths is his ability to conceive of such stunning shots (certainly credit also goes to his cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki) and originality, it seems rather disappointing that we are in a sense being given old material.
Speaking of repetitiveness, a few scenes in Knight of Cups verge on boring and stale. One can only watch so many scenes of Bale’s character contemplatively moving about a barren landscape underneath a cloud-infused sky. It’s pretty, yes, and can be powerful, but not indefinitely. And sure enough there are places in the film where one’s patience is likely to tire. But this is true of nearly every Malick film. Not every scene is captivating, not every scene contains that abundantly rich combination of visual and emotional content of which its director is capable. There are hits with Malick, and there are misses. But the experience as a whole is worth it, and Knight of Cups, though far from perfect, offers something that one would be hard-pressed to find anywhere else.
Spectatio 