Every year a movie emerges as Cannes favorite whipping boy. This year, the odds-on favorite for that unwanted position is Gus Van Sant’s “The Sea of Trees,” which was loudly booed after its first screenings. Matthew McConaughey, in a performance that puts a significant dent in the McConaissance, plays a gloomy American who makes a pilgrimage to the Japanese “suicide forest” Aokigahara (aka the Sea of Trees), where dozens of people end their lives every year. Drawing comparisons to such lowly forbears as Nicholas Sparks novels, the movie is being pummeled from every angle: as sentimental, contrived, and even offensive in its treatment of a serious subject. We’ll post more long reviews as they subject — only a handful of U.K. critics had advance access — but it seems unlikely a brief reflection is going to turn critics around.
Reviews of “The Sea of Trees”
Eric Kohn, Indiewire
Gus Van Sant is the rare formalist who has been known to depart into more conventional, at times mawkish work with varied outcomes, from the now-classic “Good Will Hunting” and equally compelling “Milk” to the middling “Restless.” None of these forays, however, lead to such painfully misguided results as “The Sea of Trees,” a hackneyed story of one man’s journey toward spiritual uplift following the abrupt death of his wife (Naomi Watts). Not even Matthew McConaughey can sustain the mushy, amateurish story, which digs itself a deeper hole as it moves along. The established talents of both director and star only serve to magnify the many wrong moves that this stunning misfire takes.
Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
Gus Van Sant returns to the Cannes competition, and returns — horribly — to a middleweight syrupy-commercial mode of film-making into which he is capable of switching so easily. He may have permanently deserted the more challenging and rigorous style of movies like the Palme d’Or-winning “Elephant,” “Last Days” or indeed his poetically mysterious “Gerry,” about two guys lost in the wilderness. This fantastically annoying and dishonest tear-jerker is almost like a parodic version of that movie. For all its apparent sombreness and thoughtfulness, “The Sea of Trees” is an exasperatingly shallow film on an important and agonizingly painful subject — depression and suicide. This it slathers in palliative sentimentality. The gooey musical score with strings and woodwind, kicking in from the first airport scene, unmistakably signals brimming-eyed self-pity and self-forgiveness.
Tim Robey, Telegraph
Van Sant wanted to study a man drowning in sorrow and guide him towards the light. But the guidance he gets is fake, forced, and unbearably tricksy, a kind of suicide rehab with gotcha devices. Like Aokigahara itself, the whole film needs cordoning off with safety rope and “Keep Out” signs. There’s nothing to see inside.
Adam Woodward, Little White Lies
Ever since his mid-career reinvention as a serious character actor, there hasn’t been a single blot on Matthew McConaughey’s report card. His undeniable range and star wattage have virtually afforded him carte blanche in Hollywood. And that’s no bad thing – right now we’d watch just about anything with him in. Accordingly, the immediate feeling of watching The Sea of Trees is one of crushing regret. Not at witnessing the first bad post-McConaissance performance, more a deep, hopeless longing for all the prospective parts turned down in its favor.
And the first lusty boos of Cannes greet… Gus Van Sant’s just-concluded SEA OF TREES.
— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) May 15, 2015
First loud boos of #Cannes2015 for Gus Van Sant’s THE SEA OF TREES. Guy next to me was hissing as credits rolled.
— Nigel M. Smith (@nigelmfs) May 15, 2015
Sea of Trees? More like Sea of Oh Please #ItGotBooed
— Richard Lawson (@rilaws) May 15, 2015
Sea of Treezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
— Guy Lodge (@GuyLodge) May 15, 2015
SEA OF TREES: Dimestore mysticism of a highly maudlin and unpleasant order, passionately and deservedly booed. #Cannes
— Scott Foundas (@foundasonfilm) May 15, 2015
There might be ghosts in Gus Van Sant’s SEA OF TREES, but the booing came from elsewhere: a reaction to all the sap oozing from that forest.
— Peter Debruge (@AskDebruge) May 15, 2015
SEA OF TREES: If you’re odd enough to want to see Gus Van Sant do Nicholas Sparks, you’re time has come, fella. Awful. #Cannes2015
— Donald Clarke (@DonaldClarke63) May 15, 2015
If Gus van Sant wants to direct the next Nicholas Sparks, the job’s his. #SeaOfTrees #Cannes2015
— Dave Calhoun (@davecalhoun) May 15, 2015
SEA OF TREES is the SAFE HAVEN of this year’s #Cannes
— Nigel M. Smith (@nigelmfs) May 15, 2015
Gus Van Sant has had some off days, but Sea of Trees beats them all. Sea of Trite more like. #Cannes2015
— Lee Marshall (@leenelmezzo) May 15, 2015
@JonathanRomney: SEA OF TREES: two men wander directionlessly in a forest. Like trying to make sense of Gus van Sant’s career.
— Jonathan Romney (@JonathanRomney) May 15, 2015
THE SEA OF TREES (Van Sant) Hallmark’s Gerry. Van Sant has now transformed fully into Ron Howard’s prank monkey.
— David Jenkins (@daveyjenkins) May 15, 2015
If Gus Van Sant’s filmography can be divided, Scorsese-style, into “one for me, one for them,” SEA OF TREES is one for nobody. #Cannes
— Scott Foundas (@foundasonfilm) May 15, 2015
THE SEA OF TREES: I haven’t seen every film that’s played in competition at Cannes, so I can’t definitively say this is the worst. #Cannes
— olilyttelton (@olilyttelton) May 15, 2015
The Sea of Trees (Van Sant): 37. Should be lower, but it’s so dumb that it’s kind of perversely touching. A “serious” Robin Williams film.
— Mike D’Angelo (@gemko) May 15, 2015
Sea of Trees very messy. It feels like a movie Tom Hanks would have made in the Castaway era but…directed by art-y style Van Sant #cannes
— gregoryellwood (@HitFixGregory) May 15, 2015
SEA OF TREES: While no threat to the ongoing McConaissance, pretty shockingly contrived and bathetic.
— Alison Willmore (@alisonwillmore) May 15, 2015
SEA OF TREES does have moments of great beauty, not worth boos, but its metaphysics and melancholy lapses into being maudlin #Cannes2015
— Jason Gorber (@filmfest_ca) May 15, 2015
Can’t believe I enthusiastically skipped a Naomi Kawase movie just to have Gus Van Sant somehow make a worse one. #Cannes2015
— Wesley Morris (@Wesley_Morris) May 15, 2015
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