I can’t really say that I liked The Fountain. I can say that I ‘got it.’ I understood it. But, I just didn’t like it. This is a love it or hate it kind of film. It ambitiously attempts to ask some deep questions about the nature of life and death. It tells its tale over 1,000 years and 3 separate but intertwining story lines.

All three stories feature Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. In the present, they are a married couple. Tom, a doctor, is frantically searching for a cure that will remove his wife Izzi’s terminal brain tumor. He can’t accept the reality of her impending death. Partly as a means of coming to terms with her own death, Izzi is writing a book of her own called The Fountain. Her story follows a 16th century Spanish Conquistador who is looking for the Tree of Life in the Mayan jungle. He wants to find the tree for his beloved Queen. The third story takes place in the future where Tom is traveling into the heart of a dying star with the Tree of Life.

If it sounds heady and metaphysical and esoteric that’s because it is. Jackman does a good job of capturing the angst and the desperation of a man who can’t come to grips with losing the love of his life. On a larger level, he can’t come to grips with death.

Darren Aronofsky is an intellectual director. He gave us Pi, a movie about using math to uncover the meaning of life. He also directed Requiem of a Dream, the complicated Oscar-winner that takes an unflinching look at drug addiction. In The Fountain he dives head-first into some difficult questions about life and death.

The film is visually engaging but that isn’t enough. While I did feel for Jackman’s character, this is a very philosophical film and like most philosophy it keeps an emotional distance from its subject matter.

If you are looking for something unique and different, you might want to take a chance on The Fountain. If nothing else, it will give you a lot to talk about.