Product Details

• Actors: Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain, Hunter McCracken, Fiona Shaw
• Directors: Terrence Malick
• Writers: Terrence Malick
• Producers: Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Sarah Green, Grant Hill, William Pohlad
• Format: Color
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 3
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• DVD Release Date: October 11, 2011
• Run Time: 139 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (314 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B005HV6Y5W
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #333 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
  • #35 in Movies & TV > Blu-ray > Drama
• For more information about "The Tree of Life (Three-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

The story centers around a family with three boys in the 1950s. The eldest son witnesses the loss of innocence. Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 10/11/2011 Starring: Brad Pitt Jessica Chastain Run time: 181 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Terrence Malick

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

183 of 196 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The only way to be happy is to love, October 17, 2011

By 

maxquasimodo (Santa Barbara, CA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Tree Of Life (Amazon Instant Video)

What a film means to you kind of depends on where you are in life. I think if saw this film 20 years ago, I probably would have hated it. Now, I'm faced with big decisions - whether to start a family, and all the concerns that come with it. This movie raises issues I'd rather not think about. I almost wish I hadn't seen it. If you're looking for escapist Hollywood fare, the film might seem boring. It plays like a movie where nothing happens. The first third of the film, the director puts you into the head of a mother who has lost a child. Yeah, it's pretty heavy. And most of the rest of the film is of the kids growing up. The film is a meditation, more heavy on emotion than story. And it's more of a spiritual/religious film than a traditional drama. There is little dialogue in the movie. The imagery is compelling, though. Some of the imagery is surreal and dreamlike - and yeah, dinosaurs make an appearance in the film. But it's not Jurassic Park. I wrote down a quote from the film: "The only way to be happy is to love. Unless you love, your life will flash by." I wouldn't have given a second thought to that if I were a 20-year-old. But I'm older now, and this suddenly means something to me. It's definitely not an upbeat feel-good movie. And to be honest, I probably wouldn't recommend it to my friends and family, even though I couldn't stop watching it.

118 of 134 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Experience Full of Wonder: Watching Life Happen, October 12, 2011

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Tree Of Life (Amazon Instant Video)

THE TREE OF LIFE is not the usual film - a story that begins, develops, and ends. Yes there is a story here: in a small town (Smithville, Texas) lives a family - a stern, painfully frustrated artist/man who can't seem to succeed in anything for long except raising three boys with his rather quiet passive wife. One of the boys dies and the remaining family enters into a realm of questioning life, both at the time of the death of the child and years later through the experiences of the oldest boy reflecting on the meaning of life, his response to his father, his sense of continuing loss. The setting is in the 1950s - that structureless decade following the horrors of WW II, the unleashing of the atomic bomb, the difficulties of making a living and sacrificing dreams for a reality in a way that changes the way individuals interact not only with outsiders but also with the family unit whose only seeming hope of meaning is relying on religious protocol. Yet even religion seems to fail when the inexplicable tragedy of an innocent child's death changes everything. The journey of the film is the maturing of the eldest son as he grows into a man forever challenged by the meaningless of the loss of his brother and the effect that has on his own maturation.

The power of the film is in the visual and auditory miracles that unfold on the screen. Writer/director Terrence Malick (Days of Heaven, The New World, The Thin Red Line, etc) has gathered images from nature - incredible rock formations, waterfalls, volcanic eruptions, floating jellyfish, night skies, and light in all its forms, among many others - and allows these images to seep into our minds accompanied by the music of John Tavener, Gustav Mahler, Aresnije Jovanovic, Zbigniew Preiser, Hector Berlioz, Gustav Holst, Bedrich Smetana, Ottorino Respighi, Johannes Brahms, Francois Couperin, Johan Sebastian Bach, Henryk Górecki, Robert Schumann, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - each work so carefully chosen that the visuals are liberated from the screen to enter our minds. It is that rare opportunity to watch creation, death, life, and the majesty of nature - none of which is understandable - and that is where the comfort source of this film touches us.

The cast is committed and allows the story to enter our heads untainted; Brad Pitt is the father, Jessica Chastain is the mother, young Jack is Hunter McCracken who ages into Sean Penn, Fiona Shaw is the grandmother, and the other boys are played by Laramie Eppler and Tye Sheridan. But the real star of this glowing work of art is Terrence Malick. This film is a masterpiece of cinematic art. It needs to be seen and experienced. Grady Harp, October 11

184 of 215 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What I can't Understand..., September 25, 2011

By 

W. Card "Ben McCormack" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Tree of Life (Three-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) (Blu-ray)

What I can't understand is actually the fuss surrounding this film. People aren't just confused by it, they're acting offended by it. Apparently audiences in a lot of showings were yelling at the screen and snapping at people who tried to shush them. This movie was unusual, but I don't get what caused people to be so actively offended by it when they can sit through most movies, ambitious or otherwise, without any real problem. Is it the norm in our culture now to react to unexpected or strange images on the screen by getting angry and yelling? Could I just go out on a limb and say that if you leave before a film's over or spend the entire time yelling at the screen, I have no respect for your opinion of the film?

Chimps parading as people aside, I at least enjoyed the movie. I saw it late in its run so I never had to worry about an audience yelling at the screen.

I'm the kind of person who's patient. If a movie confuses me I don't flip out or start yelling and ranting; I sit it out. So that's what I did with this movie. I tried my best to see what Malick was doing, because I think it's pretty obvious that such a respected filmmaker would have seen at least some reason for making this movie.

First of all, there's one major reason why this film isn't for everyone and it's not one I've heard anyone else mention:

The film, from top to bottom, is extremely musical. I mean that in many ways, but let me be clearer: The father in the family the story focuses on wanted to be a conductor and dropped off that career path in favor of a secure job. The soundtrack is all very carefully-chosen classical music.

And if you zoom out far enough, the overall structure of the film is actually a very musical one - you could almost see it as some insane variant on sonata form. It's hard to describe, but visual themes resurface at various times in the film in ways that feel very similar to recapitulations in music.

As I said; not for everyone. I picked up on this stuff, but I'm a musician. I loved it.

As far as the images of dinosaurs and the cosmos interspersed in it, my impression was that Malick was trying to show cycles of creation, longing and destruction in frameworks other than those of humans. As I saw it - and this is up for debate - I read the movie as showing a very eastern sort of philosophy; one that involves a sort of reincarnation or continuation beyond the lives and deaths of individuals, species, or even planets.

Call that pretentious if you want, I thought it was done very nicely, though, and I'm very decidedly buying it as soon as it's out on DVD.

Also, I don't get why people bothered yelling at the scenes of the cosmos. If you didn't get it, I still think it was some of the most beautiful visuals I've seen in a film in a really long time. Relax. It's pretty.