The Tree of Life, starring, most notably, Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, won the Palm d'Or this year, and tells the story of a boy's relationship with his father.

The most succinct way of summing up this film is as follows: A brilliantly realistic, emotional story about a young boy growing up with his father, bookended with pretentious nonsense.

The first half an hour of this film is a convoluted mess that's supposed to represent the start of the world and evolution and everything else that happened before the start of the story. It does eventually settle down and get really quite good. Brad Pitt plays a father who's tough on his kids as he wants the best for them. As the boys get older, it becomes apparent that his attitudes are driving the family apart, and so he tries to correct the error of his ways.

The acting and dialogue is some of the most naturalistic I've ever seen, and really makes for a very touching (no paedo) story.

Definitely worth a watch as it's very different and very good, but not easy viewing by a long way. It's extremely 'art house', but I can't deny that I found it very entertaining. The middle part at least. The beginning and end are like the series Planet Earth edited by a Frenchman.