Parents' Guide to

The Tree of Life

By Jeffrey M. Anderson, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 14+

Unique, difficult, poetic masterpiece about life and death.

Movie PG-13 2011 138 minutes
The Tree of Life Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

  • 2:28
  • Tree of Life Movie: Scene 1
  • Tree of Life Movie: Scene 2
  • Tree of Life Movie: Scene 3

Community Reviews

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age 15+

Based on 11 parent reviews

Colin T.
Colin T. Adult
August 4, 2023
age 13+

My favorite movie of all time, a bit abstract though. Kids might be bored.
doctora
doctora Parent of 6-year-old
June 30, 2022
age 14+

A doozy of an abstract film about all life and one life

Bold, daring, and reaching for something that it cannot quite grasp. This film embodies cinematic risk, broad stories that try to capture essence and try to explain ourselves to ourselves. It attempts to do A LOT. It succeeds most of the time. Malick has created a masterpiece of far-reaching cinema that attempts to tell all stories in order to tell one story. How do you present life? The pain of loss and what shapes us and our sense of self? Feels like it could go off the rails into pools of abstraction, but with Malick's steady direction it always comes back to the core questions.
See all 11 parent reviews

What's the Story?

In the 1950s in Waco, Texas, a man (Brad Pitt) tries to provide for his pretty wife (Jessica Chastain) and three boys, but bad luck gets the better of him. He begins to take out his failures and frustrations on his family. Years later, the oldest boy, Jack (played as an adult by Sean Penn), contemplates his life and a terrible tragedy that continues to haunt him. He enters into a kind of dream state where he revisits the figures of his past. In between these time periods, images of the universe and the origins of life offer a new perspective on these small, earthly events.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (11 ):
Kids say (7 ):

This may be director Terrence Malick's darkest and most difficult movie to date, focusing on an angry, troubled father and the way he takes out his frustrations on his children. At the same time, hope comes in the most abstract of ways, which may leave viewers unsatisfied. But Malick's astoundingly potent physical poetry makes all this spring to life; it's a movie to be felt and experienced deeply.

Malick is one of the most mysterious and powerful filmmaking talents in the world today, and the infrequent release of his movies (only five in 40 years) creates a tremendous sense of anticipation. At the same time, his movies are a hard sell, focusing mainly on powerful, poetic imagery instead of clear, linear storytelling; most viewers simply aren't used to watching movies like this. But at the same time, Malick delivers, making the same kinds of movies today as he made in the 1970s, as impossible as that sounds.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the film's underlying violence. Why is the father so angry and frustrated? How does he express it, and why?

  • What does the grown son actually learn during his quest? Does the movie have a happy, or hopeful, ending?

  • Who do you think this movie is intended to appeal to? What message is it trying to convey to its audience?

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