To me, this movie is perfection.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

a photo album more than a film. because it reminds old themes, in right mix, well known characters, gestures and facts expected after the the first moments. the special children, the isolated space, the pressure of past, the father who does the right things in the wrong manner are pieces of a film who not surprise but it is far to be a disappointment. the only problem is the status of reminder. the director not propose a story, his story. only replace the same ingredients in a neutral manner. result - a beautiful film, first for its fragility, for images, for the references to Gothic, Scandinavian art, Sci. Fi. and a trend about special young people. the problem - the story has a fine potential and the silence, so generous used, could be better made.after its end remains only the flavor of a special form of poetry. like old pictures from an album.

The 4 main actors were phenomena. I have seen practically every English movie ever made in my 45 years and with piles of crap coming out daily, high quality and intriguing films like this one are far and few.I am not going to get into a plot analysis because my family loved it and didn't find any faults at all with the film.I can tell you this though, and to give you an example of what to expect with this film; I just watched Chloe Moretz in a new film called the 5th wave and by comparison, this Kiernan Shipka completely blows Chloe out of the water as far as acting goes.Kiernan acted so convincingly that you believe she is the actual person who she is playing in this movie, so much so that watching Chloe made it appear that Chloe has lost entirely her acting ability.Excellent flick and a must see.Ps: There was absolutely no filth or vulgarity in this movie. No lesbo scenes or anything else normal folks have no interest in. Major props to the directors, writers and producers who created an awesome movie the whole family can watch and enjoy (excluding little kids).

It was a promising premise for a 'supernatural' movie, with strong development for the teenage characters. Revelation of mysterious circumstances began to unfold, but unfortunately stop cold in giving rewarding and satisfying conclusions.The producers/director have done a remarkable job in raising expectations and heightening the audience curiosity, but failed miserably to bring closure to the very same question. In the end, the movie seems to simply took a snapshot of events that occur over a period of, say 1 week, and took the audience through it, and left without a shred of answers.If the purpose is to do just that, then, they have achieved it greatly.

So it's okay. It's fine. It's a movie that was made, but not made well. There's no passion, no story, no style, nothing. It's a movie that proves this director can put a movie together, outside of Rich Hill. Autumn Durald does a great job with the cinematography, despite there clearly being more budgetary constraints than Palo Alto, most notably the oval bokeh and the obvious digital grain, from the upped-ISO.The movie is bearable, it's watchable, but not interesting. The dialogue, however, is laughable, and the Tree of Life internal monologues are baffling. This movie is practically a series of events, albeit beautiful to look at and competently put together, with no real satisfying conclusion nor moral.This movie doesn't deserve the critical panning it has from RottenTomatoes, it's one of the better movies of the year, which I guess isn't saying much.Kiernan Shipka, and everyone really, look bored and brooding. They have nothing to work with, and when they do, it's executed laughably and obnoxiously. I have no doubt Shipka has acting chops, but this doesn't prove it, she mopes around with a vaguely confused face the whole movie.Timothee Chalamet is the best actor in the movie, and he barely has anything to show, possibly because no one has any characterization besides "quiet, distant, scared." I hope he stops being type-casted as Tom Cooper, because even when he's given the opportunity to act in these movies, it's quickly cut short (in this, his screaming and clawing are drowned out by a glaring score, muting any actual skill required to show emotion or character struggle).Hopefully Jeff Nichols' Midnight Special shows this movie up, I'm pretty disappointed. (If at any point you think I'm blindly "hating" on this movie, the very fact that I was even looking forward to a movie that wasn't advertised or talked about shows my initial interest.)