Knight of Cups | DVD review - Terrence Malick's impressionistic drama

Knight Of Cups Terrence Malick Cate Blanchett Christian Bale — (Image credit: Melinda Sue Gordon)

A masterpiece is how some viewers greeted Terrence Malick’s impressionistic drama starring Christian Bale; for others, it’s self-indulgent twaddle. The jury is still out.

Christian Bale plays a philandering Hollywood screenwriter looking for love and searching for a sense of self amid the fleshpots of Los Angeles and Las Vegas in Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups . He drifts from one party to the next; one woman to another (Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Freida Pinto, Imogen Poot and Teresa Palmer are among his conquests). How you respond to his quest, however, will be a matter of taste.

For some, Malick’s impressionistic drama is a masterpiece; for others, it’s self-indulgent twaddle. Yet if you can cope with elliptical imagery and dialogue, fragmentary voice-overs and a complete absence of plot, then the film’s sensual and sometimes ecstatic images, rhythmically edited to rhapsodic classical music, prove curiously mesmerising.

Certificate 15. Runtime 114 mins. Director Terrence Malick

Knight of Cups is available on Digital Download and is released on Blu-ray & DVD on 22 August, courtesy of Studio Canal.

Extras:

Press Conference Berlin Film Festival 2015
Red Carpet Interviews
Featurette

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC-3rnv_b3o

CATEGORIES

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.