Two strangers set on ending their torturous lives, head to a legendary forrest known as “The Sea of Trees”. Arthur Brennan (Matthew McConaughey), a depressed low-paying professor whose marriage is on the bend after the pressures of living fall squarely on his wife, treks into Aokigahara, known as The Sea of Trees, a mysterious dense forest at the base of Japan’s Mount Fuji where people go to commit suicide. On his journey to the suicide forest, he encounters Takumi Nakamura (Ken Watanabe), a Japanese man who has lost his way after attempting suicide, only to fail. The two men begin a psychological journey of life reflection and survival, which affirms Arthur’s desire to live and reconnects him to his love for his loving wife, Joan (Naomi Watts). “The Sea of Trees” is directed by Gus Van Sant, and is rated PG-13 for mature thematic material, some disturbing imagery, and minor adult language.

After being booed heavily at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, “The Sea of Trees” has received near-unanimously negative reviews, citing the film’s dull and soggy repertoire of uses for serious human psyche conditions, instead of offering informative insight into such material. Gus Van Sant is the kind of director who has always thrived with making depressing films. Some I have enjoyed, but most have been dreary offerings that feel more like resolutions for sleep depravation than visual masterpieces from a mostly ambitious filmmaker. This had me curious to sit down and ingest this movie myself, to see if there was something that I found positive about it. After taking in 105 minutes of this movie, I can clearly say that there is plenty of notoriety to keep this from coming anywhere near the top of my worst films of the year list. The movie definitely has its problems, but this film was never anything that offended me to the point of anger. I went into this film expecting nothing, and got a surprisingly pleasant amount of positives back in return. It’s sure to not win many fans, but if you can hang on through some agonizing tests of patience, “The Sea of Trees” might prove to be sentimental enough of a watch.

First of all, the acting is very sharp here. The movie plays through a somber feeling in tone pitch, so actors like McConaughey and Watts really have to bring a real passion to these characters to off-set the drowsy layering in tone, especially considering they aren’t the most likeable of people. Their chemistry rings true though, and as the movie went on, I found myself growing more and more invested into their trying relationship. Sad news is revealed halfway through the movie for these two, but what benefits this in terms of Matthew’s character development is that we finally see his desire to want to live, and it’s a welcoming fire that is needed to get through the rest of the film’s mumbling mess. There’s a real aspect to McConaughey and Watts as a relationship that feels believable because their trysts are similar to the kind of negatives that many couples go through when it gets to be too tough. The distance between them is well documented, but it’s certainly a pleasurable sit to see their love grow stronger through the thick of a troubling cloud that surrounds their relationship. Ken Watanabe is also in the film, and while I usually love Ken’s honest delivery, his character here feels completely unnecessary to the film. More times than not, I was annoyed with his mumblings, wondering if his character were drunk through three days of story. His presence lacks clarity until the end, when the most perplexing of endings rears its ugly head, and makes for one of the most jaw-dropping negative finales that I have seen this year. I can’t say much else about Watanabe without spoiling it, but McConaughey being alone in the forest would’ve increased the dread of vulnerability.

The visuals here are beautifully shot on location on Mount Fuji, and there’s certainly plenty to appreciate about the backdrops that feel very green and immense for miles around our protagonist. If you can’t find anything else that you enjoy about this movie, you must stop fighting with yourself and admit that this is a visually beautiful movie that at least put the investment into a budget to shoot on location. Thankfully, this isn’t a horror film about this forest, so a lot of colors can be digitally enhanced here to bring out the most beauty in every shot. There’s certainly an artistic irony to presenting beautiful backgrounds to a film with such depressing material in script.

That script itself shuffles around many themes throughout the movie, often refusing to settle for just one type of genre. Sure, most of it feels like a tear-jerking drama, but there’s elements to the film’s less-than-satisfying ending that pits this as a psychological thriller. It feels disjointed in the least, and that is what stands out as one of the main reasons why this movie is such a dull watch. If you can make it through the first half hour of the movie, you can make it through the deepest fires of hell. There were so many times where my patience was tested with the misfires in direction for this movie, and it certainly didn’t make it any better with the dialogue that garnered more laughter than tears. I am convinced that this is a movie that should be watched on mute. I feel like you can follow the story equally as invested as you would with sound, and at half the ironed-over fluff that over-materialized throughout the picture. I mentioned earlier how I hated the ending, and even in a world of Walt Disney, and Fast and Furious cars jumping bridges, this feels like a stretch. Considering every plot device is wrapped up with fifteen minutes left in the movie, the final scenes are just a banal wink to the audience to try to answer even the smallest of questions that we have absolutely no interest in. If the film lasted ten minutes too long in the conflict aspect, it lasted twenty minutes too long in the entertaining one.

Overall, “The Sea of Trees” isn’t quite the disaster that critics across America have painted it as. The performances from the two protagonists operate leaps and bounds higher than the script they are presented, and the visuals certainly inspire an artfully crafted production design that never flounders this small opportunity. The biggest problems come in material that feels far too paced in satisfying deliveries, as well as an ending that will send you home with nausea right before sitting down to enjoy the main course. This film would feel more believable if M Night Shyamalan hijacked it, but this is simply far too sagging for Van Sant’s message of mortality that was done better in films like “Gerry” and “Good Will Hunting”.

5/10