CAPSULE: Knight of Cups (2015, Dir. Terrence Malick)

“Once there was a young prince screenwriter, Rick (Christian Bale), whose father, the king of the East Brian Dennehy, sent him down into Egypt Hollywood to find a pearl meaningful existence. But when the prince Rick arrived, the people poured him a cup. Drinking it, he forgot he was the son of a king a decent human being, forgot about the pearl meaningful existence and fell into a deep sleep life of hedonistic excess.”

That's the quote that prefaces Terrence Malick's latest monologued image montage, Knight of Cups. I've doctored it a touch to help you make a few connections. It can act a synopsis for the film because that's about the extent of Malick's concern here. Knight of Cups is self-immolation as an act of emotional catharsis with Bale as a stand in for any number of creatives who have drunk the Hollywood Kool-Aid. One gets the sense Malick includes himself in this.

After his world is (quite literally) shaken, Rick takes a pensive wander through his life and his memories of it. Through a progression of relationships, mainly with women (Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Imogen Poots, Isabel Lucas) but also his father and brother (Wes Bentley), Rick attempts to come to terms with what he has lost, including his younger brother, and what he could potentially find.

Man's (in this case) search for spiritual fulfilment through love, familial bonds and general New Ageism, isn't revelatory, though Malick's meditative spin and Emmanuel Lubezki mind-expanding images, bring enough to make the trip worth the effort. Those who caught To the Wonder will recognise the stream of consciousness flow here, along with Malick's heavily improvised approach to sub-narrative. Knight of Cups finds the schtick more structured, with the "actors replicating their own lives" conceit and L.A.'s eerie backlot hollowness bringing at least a sense of experience to the journey.

But it all still feels somewhat opportunistic, especially when compared to Malick's more  carefully planned post-return productions (namely The Thin Red Line and The New World). Word that he split his Austin music scene film from this (same cast, different location) doesn't auger well for a return to those epic canvases.

Knight of Cups only makes one thirsty for a setting worthy of the grandiosity of Malick's particular brand of thought-poetry. Stuck here, bogged down by the mundane, it all feels a little over-engineered. A master treading water in a paddling pool.

★★★

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