Review: Gus Van Sant’s maligned ‘Sea of Trees’ is a deeply reflective experience

Given that it was booed after screening at 2015’s Cannes Film Festival and is opening against a tide of poor advance reviews, Gus Van Sant’s “The Sea of Trees” proves a stronger movie experience than one might expect. It’s anchored by a fine, understated performance by Matthew McConaughey and a deeply felt, if at times melodramatic, story that proves strangely immersive.

McConaughey plays Arthur, a depressed scholar who travels from Massachusetts to Japan to take his own life in the vast Aokigahara forest, a legendary suicide spot. (It was also the setting for this year’s supernatural thriller “The Forest.”) Once there, things don’t go quite as planned, especially when Arthur meets a Japanese family man (Ken Watanabe) also preparing to kill himself. A bond of sorts forms between the two melancholy men until Arthur must spring into action to save them both — physically and spiritually.

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Meanwhile, Arthur flashes back to what led him to consider suicide: his guilt over the demise of his alcoholic wife (Naomi Watts), with whom he shared a troubled, complex relationship.

Director Van Sant, who notably ping-pongs between more mainstream and riskier film fare, lands somewhere in the middle here, carefully — and mostly successfully — juggling the intimate demands of Chris Sparling’s reflective script with the tale’s ethereal, often demanding backdrop. Stirring cinematography by Kasper Tuxen is another plus.

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‘The Sea of Trees’

Rating: PG-13, for mature thematic material, some disturbing images and brief strong language

Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

Playing: Sundance Sunset Cinemas, West Hollywood; also on VOD