The Fountain (2006)

Warner Bros.
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Warner Bros.)

Aronofsky's impressionistic rumination on love and death weaves together three stories. Rachel Weisz is the dying wife of research scientist Hugh Jackman. One day he makes a breakthrough using a piece of a tree found in Central America. Meanwhile in her last days she is writing a book called The Fountain. It is the story of a Spanish conquistador sent by the Queen of Spain to Central America to find the Tree of Life in a hidden pyramid of the ancient Mayans. Reisz and Jackman also play these characters, which are symbolic of their other life. Finally, there is the third story, which takes place on another plane altogether. Jackman is a transcendental meditator on board a Tree Ship traveling through space to the ancient Mayan underworld, a dying star in a far off galaxy. Reisz occasionally appears to him along the way. She dies, the conquistador turns into flowers and the meditator explodes in a shower of stars upon reaching his destination. I must have missed something, because I was thoroughly unmoved by the whole experience.