Early reviews of Darren Aronofsky’s new epic were miserable, including a walk-out at Cannes. Either the film was dramatically edited before public release, or those French are nuts. The Fountain is overblown in the same way as 2001 and Solaris, but beautiful enough to get away with it. A man fights to save the woman he loves, in three overlapping acts spanning a thousand years. Recurring patterns of words and symbols tie things together, not to mention the perpetual characters played by Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. The atmosphere is incredibly sad, as Jackman’s hero tries to balance time spent with his dying wife with long hours in his lab searching for her cure. The heart-wrenching seriousness of it helps make the time-skipping structure and fantastical events believable, at least on a purely emotional level. The story takes patience to absorb, but the hypnotic visuals contribute to a zen state. Luckily no cellphones broke the bubble in the screening I went to. Aronofsky takes bigger risks with each project, and the mixture of abstract Sci-Fi and Romance will be a hard sell. He wants to blow your mind as well as your heart. I imagine the film will only find its true audience over time on DVD.

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