If you’re not interested in a movie that’s far more lyrical than narrative, if you’re uncomfortable with actors portraying philosophical constructs rather than fully fleshed characters, if you’ve only sat through one of Malick’s earlier films as some sort of sadistic endurance test, then you’re better off skipping To the Wonder. As for me, until the last couple years, I’d had mixed feelings about the filmmaker. I thought Days of Heaven was overrated. I liked The New World well enough. His World War II film, The Thin Red Line, was awfully dull. But then came 2011’s The Tree of Life, a masterpiece and the best movie of its year. After such a grandly ambitious work, which placed the story of an ordinary 20^th-century American family in the context of the meaning and history of the cosmos (and, yes, included dinosaurs), To The Wonder feels much smaller in its outlook. It too ponders the nature of human existence, but it’s even more explicitly focused on a single aspect: love.

From the film’s very first scene, in which Sofia and Malcolm stuff cans of spray paint in their shorts and shirt and dash out of a convenience store, Gimme the Loot proves a zippy, irreverent, endearing, and perfectly paced thrill.

The Fallas Dart Air felt like nascent uttering of an artistic community finally finding its real voice.