What is the Tree of Life About?

In the movie, the Tree of Life, a Texas family of the 1950s is placed in the spotlight. The life story of the family’s eldest son, Jack, is put into perspective, from his childhood to adulthood. He has two parents, yet their parenting styles are extremely dissimilar. The mother was caring, and always linked wonderment to the world to her children whereas the father was strict, vowing to prepare his kids for the hard life. Jack struggles to find the meaning and origins of life while simultaneously being skeptical about the idea of faith.

According to the article, “Either and Or: On Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life”, the writer polarizes the perspectives of the movie into the categories of “idealist” and “analyst”. For the idealist, the elements such as love, hope, and grace are present, while the analyst feels that he/she must reject the pathos that covers up the world of reason. The idealist parallels people that look for happiness, and are optimistic despite how repugnant life may sometimes be, whereas the analyst only looks for concrete truth without any flowery language or abstractness. The mother’s love for her children in the movie likely spawned the idealist approach while the harshness of the father may have indirectly created a longing for the seemingly-distant truth hidden behind the facades.

Terrence Malick created the Tree of Life in order to illustrate the polarization of views that people have about life. For many, it is either you enjoy the fruits of life, or you pessimistically view it as something deceiving. The movie ends in hope, conveying the message of finding beauty and jubilancy in all things — big or small.