Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

To the Wonder Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov June 29, 2013

Winner of SIGNIS Award at the Venice Film Festival, Terrence Malick's "To the Wonder" (2012) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of StudioCanal. The supplemental features on the disc include an original trailer for the film, video interview with actress Olga Kurylenko, and a standard making of featurette. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

The One

A man (Ben Affleck, The Town) meets a beautiful woman (Olga Kurylenko, Oblivion, The Ring Finger) in Paris. They spend some time together and fall in love. They begin making plans for the future. Then the man decides to return home to America and invites the woman and her daughter to come with him.

It turns out that what the man calls "home" is Oklahoma. He welcomes the woman and her daughter in a brand new house. They try to be a family, but the woman has a difficult time getting used to the flatlands of Oklahoma. The place is too quiet, too lonely, at times even scary. She tries to love the man and be happy with him but struggles and eventually decides to go back to France.

Meanwhile, the man meets another woman (Rachel McAdams, Passion, Midnight in Paris), someone he once loved. They talk and realize that they could fall in love again. For a while it looks like the man and the woman were meant to be together but did not know it. Then memories of the happy moments the man shared with the first woman resurface.

In the same area where the man works and lives a European priest (Javier Bardem, Biutiful, Golden Balls) attempts to rebalance his life. His church is big and clean and he is always surrounded by people who admire him, but he feels abandoned. There are others like him that also feel abandoned – poor people, old and sick people, prisoners that will never be free again. These are the people the priest knows need him the most, but they could never visit his church.

As the film progresses the two worlds the man and the priest belong to merge. The man discovers that a nearby plant has released toxic chemicals in an area where people have tried to build their dream homes. They have also tried to explain what has happened there but no one has been willing to listen. Like the people the priest often visits, they have also been abandoned.

Legendary director Terrence Malick’s latest film looks and feels like a big confession. Parts of it are painfully honest, other parts are frustrating and even incomprehensible. I think that there is a good reason why – it is meant to reveal one man’s conflicting desire to live two very different lives and share them with different people. I leave it to you to figure out who that man is.

Because the film is meant to be experienced rather than understood, reactions to it are guaranteed to be mixed. If you have never struggled with the same thoughts the man and the priest struggle, and if you have never loved and been abandoned as they have, you cannot possibly begin to understand what the film tries to accomplish. This is the reason why there is hardly any dialog in it – instead of words Malick uses images to describe everything the man and the priest feel.

Whether the approach works as intended is up for debate as even amongst admirers of Malick’s work To the Wonder isn’t universally liked. Filming feelings and desires rather than exciting stories people can easily understand is a tricky business. But if there is a director out there that can do it right, Malick is without a shadow of a doubt that director.

Another interesting aspect of this film is the fact that it is structured as a series of spontaneous scenes in which the actors essentially follow their instincts and improvise while being observed by the camera. (To the Wonder was shot without a script).

To the Wonder Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Terrence Malick's To the Wonder arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of StudioCanal.

The high-definition transfer is beautiful. During close-ups as well as during large panoramic shots image depth and fluidity are simply outstanding. Contrast levels are stable. Color reproduction is the best I have seen on a Blu-ray release this year. There is a wide variety of exceptionally rich, stable, and very natural colors. Natural light is a very important component in the film's visual style and I am happy to report that it is indeed beautifully captured (see screencapture #3). There are no serious transfer-specific anomalies, such as banding and aliasing, to report in this review. Also, there are no stability issues. To sum it all up, To the Wonder looks very impressive on Blu-ray, which is why I am convinced that fans of the film will be quite pleased with StudioCanal's presentation when they revisit the film. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).

To the Wonder Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are three audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, and English LPCM 2.0 (each with portions of French, Spanish, Italian, and Russian). For the record, StudioCanal have provided optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. When turned on, they split the image frame and the black bar below it. Additionally, there are English subtitles for the portions of the film where French, Spanish, or Russian are spoken. These subtitles are image-imposed (they cannot be turned off via the remote control).

The English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track is outstanding. Dynamic intensity here is every bit as impressive as that often heard on top-notch lossless tracks that are included on Blu-ray releases of big-budget Hollywood productions. The difference here is that this intense and very lush sound is felt through Hanan Townshend's outstanding orchestral score as well as the many extracts from original works by Berlioz, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Dvorak, amongst others. Indeed, there are parts of the film where the strings sound absolutely incredible. The dialog is exceptionally crisp, clear, stable, and always easy to follow.

To the Wonder Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - original trailer for To the Wonder. In English, not subtitled. (2 min).

• Intervew - Olga Kurylenko discusses the character she plays in To the Wonder, how she prepared for the film, and Terrence Malick's directing style. In English, nit subtitled. (6 min).

• Making of - a standard featurette with raw footage from the shooting of the film in Oklahoma. Short comments from various cast and crew members are also included. (11 min).

To the Wonder Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Director Terrence Malick's latest film isn't easy to like. It is a very bold project that can quickly frustrate those who are used to conventional storytelling. I personally think that it does not have the same aura The Tree of Life does, but then the idea behind it is clearly very deterrent. My advice to you is this: Ignore reading reviews of the film, both positive and negative, see it on Blu-ray, and form your own opinion. StudioCanal's technical presentation of To the Wonder is enormously impressive. RECOMMENDED.