Review: Knight of Cups

Hollywood screenwriter Christian Bale wanders around Hollywood and Vegas despondently, as we see fragments of his present and past circumstances. Wes Bentley and Brian Dennehy play Bale’s brother and father, Teresa Palmer plays Bale’s stripper squeeze, whilst we also see him with other girlfriends throughout his life (played by Natalie Portman, Imogen Poots, Cate Blanchett, and Frieda Pinto). Occasionally someone like Armin Mueller-Stahl, Michael Wincott, or Antonio Banderas will stop by. For reasons. Or something.

 

There may be two types of people in this world: Terrence Malick (“Badlands”, “The Thin Red Line”) fans, and those who would rather hurl themselves out of a window than watch one of his ‘epics’. My bedroom window is currently (and firmly) closed and I did previously like “Badlands” somewhat, but boy did I ever have a hard time getting through this 2015 piece of experimental cinema from the writer-director. It’s a giant wank-fest made for wankers who like wanky films made by giant wankers. Yeah, that’s probably not going to go down well with many people, but it was my most overwhelming feeling and thought whilst watching this…whatever this even is. If you’re a Terrence Malick fan, you’re probably gonna want to skip this review and live safely in the knowledge that I didn’t ‘get’ this film. I openly admit that I didn’t get it, it’s just not my kind of film anyway. However, as this is my review blog, I have a duty to state my opinion as clearly and honestly as possible. So let me count the ways I did entirely hate thee…

 

First off all, there’s the narration, and I’m not just talking about the random intro narrated by the very, very dead Sir John Gielgud. I’m not sure what the fuck that was about. No, what really bothers me is that this is yet another film that uses narration in place of what would otherwise be…um, actors giving actual performances. It results in not only the audience feeling removed from the piece, but it feels like the actors are removed from it, too. I just couldn’t find a way in, here, and Teresa Palmer playing yet another stripper who doesn’t actually remove her clothes was just the poisonous icing on this excrement cake. The film is practically wall-to-wall narration, mostly from Christian Bale’s character, but every now and then someone else would cut in, too. Even Sir Ben Fucking Kingsley narrates from time to time, even though he himself doesn’t appear in the film, though unlike Gielgud at least Kingsley is still alive. I think.

 

There’s a lot of talented actors here, but due to the narrative style, they’re not afforded the opportunity to display their talent. For crying out loud, Bale’s narration even talks over the top of other people’s scenes! These actors are foregoing displaying their talent at the service of making Terrence Malick’s ‘art’. In fact, I’m not even 100% certain Ryan O’Neal and Jason Clarke were more than extras here. Did they even know they were being filmed? Michael Wincott has a great speaking voice, but I’d much rather he were afforded the chance to give an actual performance (Ditto Brian Dennehy). Sadly, we don’t get that here. It basically amounts to 99.99% narration as Christian Bale wanders about aimlessly in what appears to be a mixture of the “SNL” sketch ‘Calvin Klein’s Compulsion’ (featuring the late Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks) crossed with that “SNL” short shot in B&W with an aged John Belushi. Or to put it another way, it’s like a pretentious perfume commercial directed by Malick, scripted by Bret Easton Ellis (Except, not really. Malick wrote it, Ellis had nothing to do with it), and stretched to two hours (thankfully shorter than some Malick films). Cinema 101 dictates that you show, don’t tell. This film is 99% tell, not show and it’s founded on a very simple plot idea that it repeats over, and over. Meanwhile, I’m not sure what Antonio Banderas was doing here, but not being a great speaker of the English language, I’m not sure it was a good idea to put him in a dialogue/narration-driven film. This whole style of drifting in and out of conversations shot in an in-your-face fish-eyed lens fashion with occasional ambient droning almost suggests someone is seriously inebriated at the helm. I don’t think that was really the intention.

 

Super-pretentious, aggressively irritating experimental filmmaking that fails to draw you in, and even then the plot is putridly simplistic. One of the worst films of the year for sure, and an embarrassing waste of acting talent. Maybe you’ll love this arty nonsense, but this one beats the hell out of me.

 

Rating: D-