The Fountain
Rent & Buy
Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world.
What critics thought
DivisiveAronofsky's meditation on death, love, and transcendence across three time periods landed critics almost perfectly down the middle — some found its ambition genuinely visionary, others found it incoherent and self-important. The split is unusually sharp and unusually consistent: the same qualities (the nonlinear structure, the dense symbolic layering, the visual excess) are what champions love and detractors can't forgive.
“It's difficult to recall another American film that, in pursuing a passionate and personal vision, goes so maddeningly, uproariously wrong.”
Michael Atkinson·Sight & Sound
“The Fountain is probably the deftest stories-within-stories narrative film I've seen ... By The Fountain's end, the multilayered meta-narrative... resolves (or does it?) into a kind of diegetic Möbius strip, to stunning effect.”
Glenn Kenny·Premiere
“a gorgeous nimbus of confusion”
The New Yorker
“The movie may have significant truths to impart, although I have my doubts, but it feels too inexperienced, too unworldly, to have earned the right to them.”
Anthony Lane·The New Yorker
Genres
Drama, Adventure, Science Fiction, Romance
Cast & Crew
Darren AronofskyDirector
Hugh JackmanTomás / Tom Creo / Tommy
Rachel WeiszIsabel / Izzi Creo
Ellen BurstynDr. Lillian Guzetti
Mark MargolisFather Avila
Stephen McHattieGrand Inquisitor Silecio
Cliff CurtisCaptain Ariel
Sean Patrick ThomasAntonio
Donna MurphyBetty
Ethan SupleeManny
Richard McMillanHenry
Lorne BrassDr. Alan Lipper
Clint MansellComposer
Ari HandelWriter
Matthew LibatiqueCinematographyThe Fountain
Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world.
What critics thought
DivisiveAronofsky's meditation on death, love, and transcendence across three time periods landed critics almost perfectly down the middle — some found its ambition genuinely visionary, others found it incoherent and self-important. The split is unusually sharp and unusually consistent: the same qualities (the nonlinear structure, the dense symbolic layering, the visual excess) are what champions love and detractors can't forgive.
“It's difficult to recall another American film that, in pursuing a passionate and personal vision, goes so maddeningly, uproariously wrong.”
Michael Atkinson·Sight & Sound
“The Fountain is probably the deftest stories-within-stories narrative film I've seen ... By The Fountain's end, the multilayered meta-narrative... resolves (or does it?) into a kind of diegetic Möbius strip, to stunning effect.”
Glenn Kenny·Premiere
“a gorgeous nimbus of confusion”
The New Yorker
“The movie may have significant truths to impart, although I have my doubts, but it feels too inexperienced, too unworldly, to have earned the right to them.”
Anthony Lane·The New Yorker
Genres
Drama, Adventure, Science Fiction, Romance
Cast & Crew
Darren AronofskyDirectorHugh JackmanTomás / Tom Creo / TommyRachel WeiszIsabel / Izzi CreoEllen BurstynDr. Lillian GuzettiMark MargolisFather AvilaStephen McHattieGrand Inquisitor SilecioCliff CurtisCaptain ArielSean Patrick ThomasAntonioDonna MurphyBettyEthan SupleeMannyRichard McMillanHenryLorne BrassDr. Alan LipperClint MansellComposerAri HandelWriterMatthew LibatiqueCinematographyRent & Buy