The opening 30 or so minutes are stunning, an often wordless barrage of fragmented cross-cutting accompanied by Horner’s ethereal score. But the story stalls from then on, cause it’s grounded in a tepid romance/love triangle that, again, seems to be made in the editing room without any sense of structure. There’s nothing carrying one through this mess but absolutely inert voiceover that comes off as cliches combined with awful poetry. I’m starting to think Malick’s post-20th-century filmmaking style is often fundamentally anti-dramatic—The New World just flutters about hoping Lubezki’s imagery is enough to create rapture. It isn’t.

This was on in the background when I was hanging out with some friends. Guy in charge of the remote fast-forwarded through at least 20 minutes of it, and for good reason. When I was paying attention this was cringy indie garbage, and that ending was so, so stupid. Trevorrow was a hack from the start.

Perfectly respectable, which is kinda the problem. It never gets beyond being a mildly diverting fable, not particularly emotionally resonant or visually appealing, just some leaden child-acting and lifeless pacing. This thing is also freakin’ weird—a young boy sees a seal lose it’s skin and then out pops a young girl, whom he then rescues and... marries. Probably wasn’t the best place for me to start with Sayles, but whatever.