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(Review) Be Warned: Knight of Cups Becomes a Terrence Malick Parody of Himself

1/2 out of 5 stars.

Christian Bale-Natalie Portman

The shocking thing about a movie like Knight of Cups isn’t the fact that it’s a movie told almost entirely in voiceover and lacks any plot or characters. It isn’t the fact that, during its near two-hour runtime, it is one of the most formalistic movies I’ve ever seen, beating even Peter Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books. It’s the fact that this is the seventh film by Terrence Malick, a man who showed more maturity and perspective as a young man in his 30s with Badlands and Days of Heaven (a film I happily call a masterpiece) than as a man in his 70s.

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Once upon a time, his sweeping, slow-paced films, which showcased his remarkable cinematography and grasp for symphonic editing, also had rich characters, compelling (if simplistic) plots, equally compelling deeper themes, and had the ability to make an emotional impression. AMalick made such an impression that his impact in cinema has been borrowed by countless younger filmmakers who watched and learned from these earlier films.

If Knight of Cups came out without Terrence Malick’s name attached, most would assume this filmmaker must really like Malick but that they don’t understand why that approach worked in his earlier films. The film, “starring” Christian Bale, feels like a movie I might have seen in a film class from a student who just watched all of Malick’s movies and wanted to give it a try—a student film teachers might dismiss as technically excellent but so bloated with self-indulgent and vapid sensibilities that it ultimately showcases the burden of a young person without enough life experience to express the themes he’s interested in. Knight of Cups might claim to be an adaption of Christian poetry from the 17th century, but on screen, with its car commercial exterior, aimless plot, and impossibly pretty people swarming our petty anti-hero, deep in tortured thoughts never fully expressed, it feels like the cinematic definition for white male privilege.

Normally, I don’t like focusing on a recap, but in this case, I not only want to give the “plot” but specifically the plot the studio provides. Here is the official description:

Knight of Cups follows writer Rick (Christian Bale) on an odyssey through the playgrounds of Los Angeles and Las Vegas as he undertakes a search for love and self. Even as he moves through a desire-laden landscape of mansions, resorts, beaches and clubs, Rick grapples over complicated relationships with his brother (Wes Bentley) and father (Brian Dennehy). His quest to break the spell of his disenchantment takes him on a series of adventures with six alluring women: rebellious Della (Imogen Poots); his physician ex-wife (Cate Blanchett); a serene model (Freida Pinto); a woman he wronged in the past (Natalie Portman); a spirited, playful stripper (Teresa Palmer); and innocent Isabel (Isabel Lucas), who helps him see a way forward.

A couple of things I want to note in that description regarding the movie I actually sat through:

That journey is not clear unless you have read the description beforehand, and if people don’t know that’s Malick’s intention, I think they’ll be furious watching this movie. In fact, in a critics’ screening, I saw multiple people walk out and more than a few people groaning. That behavior is really rare in those industry screenings, but I completely understand why it happened during this one.

It should also be said that Rick (although I don’t remember ever hearing a single name during this movie), isn’t an everyman. He’s a non-character, and Malick’s insistence that an “everyman” equals an emotionless shell misses the point. Most people aren’t like that, and if they are, they aren’t the everyman. Most people have a personality, opinions, and moods, and we know from experience that when you want to do something that appeals to the universal, specific details are key. Be so specific with your details that nothing seems generic or trendy, so things feel personal and, ultimately, universal. Rick, as a character, may be presented as “depressed” or lost, but Malick is asking Bale to play it as if he has no personality or humanity whatsoever, and while the blankness is haunting and effective in a film like Under the Skin, it doesn’t work here because he’s a character whose journey is impossible to care about right from the beginning.

Also, as you might assume, Malick’s increasing sexism with age is at new heights here. I don’t think he realizes the misogyny he puts out there, but to use women simply as stand-ins for a man’s emotional journey—as representations rather than characters—is unbelievably frustrating to sit through. Once upon a time, he had women like Sissy Spacek in Badlands, Brooke Adams in Days of Heaven, Q’orianka Kilcher in The New World, and Jessica Chastain in Tree of Life. Even Chastain’s representation of heart to Brad Pitt’s head was a bit much to take, but like To the Wonder, the women in this film are used to define a hollow man they’re all drawn to for baffling reasons—something to be consumed to enrich and give purpose to him. It’s almost unbearable. These women, many excellent actresses, are objectified like they’re part of the cinematography, beauty simply to appreciate like sightseers along for Rick’s narcissistic journey.

As noted, Brian Dennehy (thank goodness for him and his King Lear qualities in this movie) and Wes Bentley are the other cast members of note and given more dimension than any of the women, but just barely. Although, it made me laugh that Bentley is in this movie, considering his past as the actor from American Beauty. Perhaps Malick gets more out of that plastic bag scene than I would assume, but that scene is 3 and half minutes and built around previously established characters. After all, part of the reason that “most beautiful thing I ever filmed” scene works is the juxtaposition that it is beautiful, but appreciated by teenagers just starting to look for deeper meaning without the life experience to help them navigate.

Malick seems to have become a more juvenile director, and like many actual young adults, confuses grim misery with depth in his work. They aren’t one and the same. I think Malick was labeled too often as pretentious in the past, but this time, he earns it. The individual parts and combined whole are far less important or rewarding than Malick either honestly believes it is or is trying to pass it off as. His other films have received that criticism, and I honestly don’t think his first four films deserved it. Even Tree of Life, a movie I don’t personally like, is clearly aiming for more meaning and personal expression, but with To the Wonder and now Knight of Cups, his juvenile approach has crossed the line and turned Malick into a parody of the filmmaker he used to be.

Lesley Coffin is a New York transplant from the midwest. She is the New York-based writer/podcast editor for Filmoria and film contributor at The Interrobang. When not doing that, she’s writing books on classic Hollywood, including Lew Ayres: Hollywood’s Conscientious Objector and her new book Hitchcock’s Stars: Alfred Hitchcock and the Hollywood Studio System.

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