OVID.tv Presents THE TREE Film Review — Dealing With Loss

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A young girl stands in the bed of a rusty pickup truck, peering over the top of the hood to see a giant fig tree beside a quaint house. She giggles as the wind blows through her blonde hair while the truck starts to veer off path. The rough trail causes her to sway back and forth as she yells out “Where are you going?”. We hear the girl calling out to her dad as the truck slowly rolls into the fig tree, causing the entire family to come out of the house. The camera pans to the father laying in the driver's seat while the children bang their fists on the glass. “Dad’s not moving!” the children exclaim as Dawn, their mother, tries to shake her beloved husband awake.

The Tree, directed by Julie Bertuccelli, follows a close-knit Australian family of five through the challenges of losing a loved one. The film focuses on the youngest daughter Simone (Morgan Davies) who believes she was her father’s favorite, and her mother Dawn (Charlotte Gainsbourg) as they navigate their relationship in a now single parent household. After her father’s passing, Simone believes he is whispering to her through the tree. Simone overly personifies the fig tree and feels like it’s the last connection she has to her late father. Throughout the film Simone demonstrates how much the­–at times destructive– tree means to her and does anything she can to protect it.

OVID.tv Film Accurately Depicts The Struggles Of Loss

We watch in sympathy as the new head of the household, Dawn, struggles with getting up in the morning or even going to the store for milk. The Tree sparks questions like ‘When is the right time to move on?’, when we see Dawn take on a new relationship, or when we watch Simone’s siblings accuse her of just wanting attention. This film also gives us the unique experience of seeing how differently the children cope with the loss of their father from one another.

In this writer’s view, the impact of this film largely comes for the performances of young actor Morgan Davies and Charlotte Gainsbourg, as they depict the grief and challenges that families have to overcome when dealing with loss. They help us experience with them the bittersweet effects of pain and heartache on a young family. Their emotion evoking acting often exceeds the power of the script.