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Fountain, The

EMAILPRINTWarner Bros. Pictures

Fountain, The reviews
51
8.0 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 36 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 233 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Action  |  Drama  |  Romance  |  Sci-fi

Written by: Darren Aronofsky (also story)
Ari Handel (story)

Directed by: Darren Aronofsky

Release Date:
Theatrical: November 22, 2006
DVD: May 15, 2007

Running Time: 96 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: PG-13 for some intense sequences of violent action, some sensuality and language

Starring Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, Ellen Burstyn, Mark Margolis, Stephen McHattie, Fernando Hernandez, Cliff Curtis, Sean Patrick Thomas, and Donna Murphy

The Fountain is an odyssey about one man's eternal struggle to save the woman he loves. (Warner Bros.)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Premiere Glenn Kenny

As it happens, each one of these tales is also a love story, and The Fountain is Aronofsky’s profession of faith concerning love’s place in the idea of eternity. It’s a movie that’s as deeply felt as it is imagined.

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100

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

It's an ambitious, passionate, grief-stricken work of film art.

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83

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

I'm as touched and charmed by its failures as I am transfixed, at times, by its successful inventiveness and audacity.

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83

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Viewers not attuned to his (Aronofsky's) heartfelt, bombastic Richard Wagner-by-way-of-"2001: A Space Odyssey" lyricism might be better off looking elsewhere. But they'll never see anything else quite like it.

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80

Empire Helen O'Hara

At heart, this is a simple Zen fable about love and death. In execution, it’s a complex and gorgeous mini-epic with sterling performances from its two stars.

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75

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Darren Aronofsky labors awfully hard to get across a pretty simple message in The Fountain. But his efforts are so ethereal and extreme, it's almost impossible to turn away.

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75

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

It's often maddening, because of its structure, and some of its visuals are pretentious nonsense. But, as a story of undying love, it's certainly unique.

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67

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

While the film is intriguing as it's transpiring, it has very little impact. It's more intellectual than emotional, its message doesn't come through without a struggle and it was completely out of my mind five minutes after seeing it.

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63

New York Post Kyle Smith

There's a geyser of ambition in the visually stunning The Fountain, but the story of a thousand-year quest for the Fountain of Youth eventually trickles out.

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63

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

In telling a tale of love across time, Aronofsky is sometimes guilty of creating arty, pretentious psychobabble. But in visual terms, he's trying to expose his own raw, romantic heart. Folly? Maybe. But a risk worth taking.

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63

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The overall experience fails to satisfy on a basic level. This is one of those films it's easier to be impressed with than it is to like.

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63

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

It's possible to admire or respect a movie without enjoying it too much, and that's partly the reaction I had to Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. It's an incredibly ambitious film of sometimes thrilling visual achievement, but it didn't connect fully to my mind and nerves.

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63

Boston Globe Ty Burr

A noble, shipwrecked folly.

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63

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

If you want my rock-solid statement on whether The Fountain is a masterpiece or a muddle, check with me in 2026.

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63

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

When a film telling three stories and spanning thousands of years has a running time of 96 minutes, scenes must have been cut out. There will someday be a Director’s Cut of this movie, and that’s the cut I want to see.

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50

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Like all of his previous films, it's visually arresting - if any recent film embodies the concept of cinema as poetry, this it it - but unlike "Pi" or "Requiem for a Dream," these aren't characters we're ever invested in.

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50

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

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.

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50

Slate Dana Stevens

With The Fountain, Aronofsky has become the hero of "Pi," without the desistance or the humility. He not only wants to ask the big questions, he tries to tie it all up with The Big Answer. And that's worse than bad metaphysics, it's bad filmmaking.

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50

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

A meditation of life, death, reincarnation and biblical symbolism that feels peculiarly like a head-shop poster, blown up to feature-movie size.

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50

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The Fountain is probably too muddled and half-baked to even attain cult status -- but you can still see what writer-director Darren Aronofsky was striving for, and even if his reach exceeded his grasp, his intentions were both admirable and worthy of respect.

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50

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Part dewey-eyed paperback romance, part acid-trip planetarium show, this extravagantly silly movie comes on like the second coming of "2001."

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50

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Bloated and logy, and art-directed within an inch of its life, the movie shovels heaps of phony portent and all-purpose mystical imagery onto a thin and maudlin plot.

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50

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The problem, though, is that its techniques run too far beyond its ideas, which are blurry and banal, rather than mysterious and resonant. The Fountain is something to see, but it is also much less, finally, than meets the eye.

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50

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The movie would be more bearable without the unyielding score by Clint Mansell, which somehow melds the worst of Minimalism, art rock, and New Age music. It's what you'd hear if your massage therapist wanted to induce a stroke.

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50

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

An intoxicatingly beautiful but painfully simplistic fable about love and death.

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40

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

Jackman does everything required of him, and his range is quite admirable, while Weisz, who has nothing to prove, does looking gorgeous very nicely.

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40

Variety Leslie Felperin

Suffered from production fits and starts and reportedly has been cut down from a longer running time to a still tedious and repetitious hour and a half.

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40

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Solemn, flashy, and flabbergasting, The Fountain--adapted by Darren Aronofsky from his own graphic novel--should really be called The Shpritz. The premise is lachrymose, the sets are clammy, and the metaphysics all wet.

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40

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

It's a sprawling experiment in philosophical time travel and metaphysical noodling. And it's an earnest, magnificent wreck.

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38

USA Today Claudia Puig

Overflows with pretensions and absurdity.

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33

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Just because The Fountain is different doesn't mean it's good. In fact, it's borderline unwatchable, though this hasn't prevented the Oscar buzz from buzzing.

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30

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

I feel for the marketing person charged with devising a tagline for Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, a fantasy whose turgid pretensions defy the very notion of marketing.

30

Chicago Reader Meredith Brody

A pretentious, unfocused, and fussy mess, in which director Darren Aronofsky manages to make Hugh Jackman unattractive and unsympathetic… Even fans of Aronofsky's incoherent, flashy “Pi” and somewhat more coherent, flashy “Requiem for a Dream” will be scratching their heads.

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25

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

The Fountain' never comes together. Like the time traveler at its center, it's all over the map.

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25

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Has to be one of the nuttiest, sappiest (literally), most unintentionally hilarious spectacles to come down the time-travel turnpike in eons.

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20

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Aronofsky's reach far exceeds his grasp with this film, and the muddle he concocts makes one wonder if there was ever a solid foundation for The Fountain. Hope may spring eternal, but this fountain is a dry hole.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 233 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Un Impressed gave it a3:
I'm loving the fact that there are so many reviews on here claiming to understand this film and dogging those who didn't. Interestingly enough, I don't think I read two of those reviews that agreed on what the film was about, or very many that attempted to explain it at all. I understand that many of those people and others will say that is the beauty of the film, that it can mean so many things to so many different people. But when something 'can' mean so many things to so many people, then it ultimately means nothing, doesn't it? I'm an open minded individual and watched this film, first of all thinking it was going to be something else, but then to read how long it was and ask myself "It was ONLY 96 minutes long?" I don't know, I'm sure many people could have a hayday with my review, but when a film feels an hour longer than it actually is, and when it ultimately , in my humble opinion, means nothing, then it is not a masterpiece, but a garbled mess of something that can't be explained. But of course, I know I have a more analytical than creative mind, so take it for what you will.

Rob S gave it a10:
Hands down, the most astonishing science fiction film of the past decade. Awesome on every level, and a sleeper destined to become a future classic. In 20 years from now, it will appear in lists of the greatest science fiction films ever made, if not in lists of the greatest films. Just as Bladerunner and 2001: A Space Odyssey do these days, despite both being widely ridiculed when they were first released... Also features possibly the most beautiful soundtrack score ever, by Clint Mansell. Even those who didn't understand or like the film, pretty much acknowledge that the music is a rare masterpiece.

Michael H gave it a10:
Death is the road to awe. Beautiful. An exceptional piece of emotive movie making. The visual effects take you to a different plane and it's breathtaking. Hugh Jackman outshines everyone in his role and truly reaches outt o his emotional and soft side. An amazing picture of love and the lasting hold it has on us.

Alexandra gave it a10:
The fact that this movie got such dismal reviews is a testament to how emotionally and intellectually dead the general populace is. This movie doesn't follow the conventional formula that is palatable to the average viewer. History has demonstrated time and time again that masterpieces are rarely understood and appreciated at the time of their debut. The Fountain is one of those masterpieces. Only those viewers who are willing to take the poetic beauty of this film on its own merits will understand this movie's evocative emotional power. Aronofsky has created something rich and sensuous; the spectacular visuals, the incredible score, and the complex story overwhelmed me to such a degree that I sometimes had to remind myself to breathe. I can't get this movie out of my head, and that is a beautiful thing.

Laurie E gave it a10:
It isn't the destination, its the journey that is important. Similar to "Being Human" with Robin Williams; good way to broach difficult issues of life and death.

killdarren gave it a0:
Darren Aronofsky...a director who holds his audience or anyone for that matter, at absolute contempt. His films do NOTHING but divide critics and audiences and this pretentious hack is laughing all the way to the bank. Enjoy!

Daren B gave it a10:
Deepest movie I've ever seen, very philosophical.

Read more user comments >

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