Film Critics' Failure to Engage With Terrence Malick's Moving Christian Message

THE WEEK
By Damon Linker

HOLLYWOOD---Both The Tree of Life (2011) and the just-released To the Wonder (2013) are deeply Christian in outlook and inspiration — and both demonstrate the religion's continued power to serve as a vital cultural and intellectual force. Mainstream critics hardly seem to have noticed. The problem is that, regardless of whether they've admired or ridiculed the films, the vast majority of mainstream critics have failed to treat them as the profoundly religious — and specifically Christian — works of art that they are. Whether or not the silence is a product of the theological illiteracy and scriptural ignorance that typically prevails among overwhelmingly secular journalists, something essential about these remarkable films has been missed. [link]