The Tree (2010)
The O'Neills lived happily in their house in the Australian countryside. That was until one day fate struck blindly, taking the life of Peter, the father, leaving his grief-stricken wife Dawn alone with their four children. Among them, eight-year-old Simone denies this reality. She is persuaded that her father still lives in the giant fig tree growing near their house and speaks to her through its leaves. But the tree becomes more and more invasive and threatens the house. It must be felled. Of course, Simone won't allow it.
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Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.
A different way of telling a story
A brilliant film that helped define a genre
Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.
Look at the credits of this movie and you know it all. This movie was exclusively made by woman and this can be seen from minute one. There are so many cheesy scenes and so much irrational behavior that you can almost see the crew behind the camera sticking together crying their eyes out about what a touchy movie they are making.I am sorry. It is not working that way.The story is fine at its trunk, but when we get to the leafs it stinks - the kid's character excepted.Could have been a nice film if it either would contain some more fairy tale elements or some more reality in terms of male thinking.
What an annoying movie. Spoiler Alert! Wonderful acting with a thin script that didn't really make sense. A mother is catatonic and dysfunctional after her husband dies while her kids cope and move forward in their own ways. When the tree roots of the huge tree outside their house damage their plumbing she meets a nice man who owns a plumbing supply store, hires her to take care of the office and pulls her our of her depression. While the daughter believes the father's spirit is in the tree and the mother and a brother find comfort in the tree, the tree's roots continue to threaten their lives by splitting their water storage cistern. When the new boyfriend comes with a crew to cut it down, the daughter climbs it and refuses to come down. The mother sides with the daughter, loosing the boy friend, and when a cyclone topples the tree into the house, she looses that too. IF she had been an adult and helped her daughter deal with reality, accept death and go forward with life, she could have had a house and probably a new husband. Instead she looses the house, her job presumably and boyfriend, and appears to ride off into the sunset cheerfully. Why was that a good outcome? Her oldest son, who had held the family together while she couldn't get out of bed, was off to college. The daughter was a wonderful actress but she wasn't a wise child helping the mother out of her grief, and the mother didn't help her family. If the tree was a metaphor for the father, his spirit wasn't doing any favors by destroying their home. Good acting, beautiful scenery but pointless story. The mother behaved badly after her husband dies, and continues to behave badly after the tree destroys the house.
Sometime i feel alone in this world...and when I saw that this movie only had 6.6, it really just proved it again.Enough is enough, I had to find my old password in order to log in, and vote 10, and of course, to write this review.This movie is a masterpiece. It has some of the most wonderful pictures, cuts and acting I've ever seen. The acting is so psychological correct, that you forget all about you are watching a movie. Instead you feel like a fly on the wall. The only place were i lost my focus to the movie, where when I think: Where did they find that girl? (Simone) I found out later that more than 200 girls were auditioned to find her. This does not necessarily mean she, Morgana Davies, is excellent, but...she just is. I will bet what i have in my pockets, that this girl just has started a carrier, like Nathalie Portman did in Leon, this is her phantom star. Surely a great carrier is waiting.But, let us not loose our focus from the movie. If you are a deep person, who loves themes like: family, the unexplained, loyalty, love, and great moving pictures, spiced with the best acting in cinemas right now...then go and buy this movie, and give it to your friend to enjoy it after wards.I will "only" give it 9 though..just because of movies like Braveheart, La Vita e Bella and The Matrix still exists :) Peace E
Filmed in Queensland, this French Australian co-production is a moving family drama that deals with universal themes of loss, grief, and redemption. The film has been adapted from Judy Pascoe's novel Our Father Who Art In The Tree, and follows a rural family struggling to cope following the sudden death of Peter (Aden Young), the man of the house. The recently widowed Dawn (Charlotte Gainsborough) is having trouble coping, and her family starts to fall apart.Young Simone O'Neill (newcomer Morgana Davies) believes that his spirit lives in the big Moreton Bay fig tree next to their house. She refuses to allow it to be cut down even when its roots and branches threaten to wreck the house. Meanwhile, Dawn finds romance with local plumber George (Marton Csokas), which begins the healing process. However Simone is resentful of his presence and this puts further pressure on the family.There are a few too many subplots here, some of which are never satisfactorily resolved. The Tree explores some painful emotions, and French director Julie Bertucelli (Since Otar Left, etc) handles the material with a sense of compassion and sensitivity. She draws good performances from her small but effective cast, with young Davies a standout with her prickly performance. Nigel Buck's gorgeous cinematography enriches the film.