A note book or sketch book in hand, a pen, and you may never be waiting again. The photo line up of stars from the silver screen gave me something to do while waiting for The Tree of Life to start. Both are something of a pot pourri, though Terence Mallick's film is hypnotically beautiful while these are plainly not.  Mallick's work is lyric and compelling , though one feels a little like the character in the film who is asked to close the door carefully fifty times, 'Is so much repetition beneficial?'  There are moments early on when the momentum is not what it should be, there is nothing more telling than falling asleep from too much spluttering lava, beautiful but short on character,  but dont let this put you off, the scenes in space and the interior of blood vessels that follow are truly glorious, an unashamed celebration of life, the universe and everything.

Everything also includes the claustrophobic oppression of the disciplinarian '50's father, it is plausible, gruelling and elegant, that the father, played by Brad Pitt, still loves them all and expects affecton is all the more poignant.  The mother, a calmly  idealised godddes with a penchant for water play, never falters, ages or behaves badly. There may be people like this in real life but I've not met them. The boys are pretty near perfectly caste, vulnerable and game, so the tragedy you are moving deeper into, is balanced in part by the freedom of their Twain-esque growing up with the run of town and country side. What you end up making of it all is your business.