The Tree of Life came out in 2011; I didn’t care for it. The whole “Brad Pitt whispers Meaningful Sentences Over Beautiful Images” thing made it feel like a long and expensive version of “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey.”
This movies starts with similar beautiful but disconnected images, all shot in first person point of view, and I was afraid I was in for Deep Thoughts Redux. But the movie actually uses the starting scenes to teach you how to watch it, then trusts you to understand the story without having the leads narrate all of their feelings. And when the camera’s point of view shifts from one character to two, the movie takes a moment to teach how to watch the new style, while also using the moment to give some character moments for the two leads.
One of my favorite movies of the year.