To The Wonder left little to ponder and a lot to be desired

PUBLISHED: 21:13 EST, 28 February 2013 | UPDATED: 21:13 EST, 28 February 2013

TO THE WONDER (12A)

Verdict: Not wonderful Turkey

Rating:

It's a wonder that To The Wonder ever found a release. Terrence Malick's long, lugubrious film is a prolonged exercise in directorial self-pleasuring.

Such story as it has concerns a blank-faced American (Ben Affleck reverting to useless lumpishness) bringing a lively, beautiful French girl (Olga Kurylenko) back to live with him in Oklahoma, where unsurprisingly she succumbs to boredom and discontent.

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Its certainly not Argo: To the Wonder stars Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams

Their Catholic priest (Javier Bardem) trudges around like a morose bloodhound, looking despairing, as though longing for someone, anyone, to toss him a morsel of intelligent dialogue. He seems to be struggling with something: it could be a crisis of faith, but it might equally well be haemorrhoids.

The French girl goes home, possibly to try for better luck with Jean Luc Godard, and Affleck embarks on an affair with a childhood sweetheart (Rachel McAdams) before that, too, founders in the rock of his frozen-faced inertia.

There's more to come after that, but nothing of any interest, and my advice would be to bale out before the end and do something more culturally rewarding, such as stare at your ceiling for a couple of hours.

I'm sure this film is meant to feature universal characters and reflect years of deep thought and spiritual awakening. All I can say is that it conveys none of these things.

After this and The Tree of Life, there can be no doubt that the once fashionable Malick has turned into the world's most insufferable bore.

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