Take a chance on Terrence Malick’s ‘To the Wonder’

It feels as if we’ve hit a major movie slump. So much this year has disappointed. I wasn’t entranced with Danny Boyle’s crime thriller “Trance.” “42,” Brian Helgeland’s new drama based on baseball great Jackie Robinson’s historic defiance of racial stereotypes, didn’t knock it out of the park despite its good intentions.

I even considered a shout-out for Selena Gomez and her gal-pals in “Spring Breakers” for exceeding low expectations. And so I find myself suggesting that you consider taking on the latest challenge from director Terrence Malick — “To the Wonder.” Malick never makes it easy to embrace his films, but he’s created a thoughtful and surprisingly relatable look at love.

It stars Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko Rachel McAdams and Javier Bardem in a series of free-floating ideas and emotions. The dialogue is so spare, the words so poetic, the imagery so powerful, it makes for a movie designed to be absorbed as much as watched.

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