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Knight of Cups

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Paul Asay

Movie Review

“As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den; and I layed me down in the place to sleep: and as I slept, I dreamed a dream.”

Director Terrence Malick begins Knight of Cups with these words—words culled from John Bunyan’s classic Christian allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress. And the world Malick then shows us is no less wild than Bunyan’s, no less dreamlike. Rick is Malick’s pilgrim—a powerful figure in the entertainment industry, it seems, living a life of reasonable leisure and over-the-top hedonism. He’s invited to the coolest parties, hangs with the hippest crowds and can while away each and every evening with his choice of beautiful bedmates.

And yet he sleeps, we’re told. He dreams. He walks somnolent, moving from woman to woman, relationship to relationship. He “drank from a cup that took away his memory,” his father tells us. “He forgot that he was the son of a king.” And though he doesn’t remember, he was given a quest long ago—a quest to find a precious pearl.

“Where did I go wrong?” Rick wonders. He can feel that something’s amiss—that something’s missing. The women he’s with sense it too. He’s distant. Dreamlike. “Am I bringing you back to life?” one asks, playfully moving his arms on and off his chest, as if resuscitating him.

But after an earthquake shakes him to his core, Rick seems determined to remember what he forgot, to perhaps find his way back to the path he lost. To find that pearl, whatever shape it may take.

And it doesn’t matter how many more women Rick needs to meet to find it.

Positive Elements

It’s hard to cast what happens in this movie in purely positive or negative terms. Like all of Malick’s work, Knight of Cups feels more like a dream than a narrative—flashes of memory mixed with hope and fear, despair and exultation. And it may also be, as the director suggests with his allusion to Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegory of sorts.

But we can at least say with some degree of confidence that Rick wants more depth than his superficial life has provided him thus far. Also: Nancy, his ex-wife, is a doctor who tenderly cares for horrifically scarred patients—many of whom (according to the credits) are real-life burn victims. Rick admits to himself that Nancy gave him the closest sense of happiness he’d ever known. He says to her, “You gave me peace. You gave me what the world can’t give. Mercy. Joy. Love.” And it seems that, despite many false turns, Rick does begin to find his way back to something worth having—repairing some of the damage done inside his family and coming to better appreciate his flawed father.

Spiritual Elements

Knight of Cups takes its name from a Tarot card bearing a character who plods along astride a white horse—a symbol of purity and spirituality. Taking things one step further, the movie’s posters show Rick (the presumed knight) upside down. In fortune-telling lore, that upside-down card signifies a situation that at first seems wonderfully exciting but turns out to be quite unfulfilling—much like Rick’s life.

The Tarot is referred to regularly in the film: Rick visits a fortune-teller at one point, and every new segment of the movie begins with a subtitle screen referencing a new card (the moon, the sun, the high priestess, the hanged fool, death, etc.).

There are allusions to other belief systems and religions as well. Indeed, many of Rick’s dalliances with women can be taken as metaphors for flirtations with various religions. One woman, a stripper who says she changes her “reality” every evening, seems closely associated with Hinduism: They vacation at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, where a Hindu shrine appears in the background. We also see a man playfully slap a thin stone onto his brow, imitating the Hindu “third eye.” Another woman, calm and peaceful, is shown doing yogic exercises in front of a statue of the Buddha. She rejects Rick’s advances, saying, “I don’t want to wreak havoc in men’s lives anymore”—an echo of the Buddhist concept of peaceful, emotionless Nirvana. Rick visits a Zen garden with yet another woman and visits with a man who apparently played at being an Eastern monk for a while.

Rick also visits a museum filled with Christian artwork. And his father is shown praying, petitioning God for forgiveness. Quotations from the Bible and Christian prayers echo throughout the movie. And before the film ends, we meet a priest who says that suffering is a gift from God, not a curse—that it helps bind us closer to Him. We’re presented with the overarching idea that even though Rick’s dad may have walked along the Christian “path” like a drunk, that doesn’t mean it’s not the right path.

Sexual Content

As mentioned, Rick gets around. Each step on his journey involves—and revolves around—a different woman. And while these relationships may be metaphorical, they’re also explicitly rendered when it comes to the sexual side of things. We see several women either without tops or fully nude. At least twice Rick seems to be involved with two women at once. Another liaison links him to a married woman. One woman—in an image seemingly separated from the rest of the movie—dominates the screen, her breasts obscured only by black paint, black X’s painted on her back.

Sex scenes include movements, sounds and partial nudity. Rick spends time in a strip club where panting patrons and aggressively moving dancers are sometimes sexually entwined. A modeling shoot depicts a heavily muscled woman in a bikini posing with a more petite model, with the photographer insinuating that the two are lovers. There’s talk of pregnancy and uncertain paternity.

Violent Content

It’s implied that a woman gets an abortion, and that it broke her heart. Rick’s brother, Barry, is emotionally scarred, and he asks Rick to help him feel “something.” Anything. He threatens playfully to jab a fork in Rick’s eye, then pokes his own hand with the utensil. He slaps at furniture with a machete. He breaks chairs across the dining room table. Rick’s father appears to wash his hands with blood.

Rick’s apartment is robbed at gunpoint. It’s also shaken by an earthquake, sending furniture and knickknacks crashing to the floor. (A potted plant from a floor above nearly crashes down on Rick).

Crude or Profane Language

A half-dozen f-words. One or two s-words. “A–“ is said a handful of times. Jesus’ name is abused once.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Rick’s hedonistic lifestyle is saturated with all manner of alcohol. A one-night stand pours champagne down his shirt in an effort to wake him up. Revelers lie passed out around his apartment. There’s talk of drugs letting you see things most people don’t. “It opened up this window for me,” a woman says. “I call it the window of truth.” She suggests that Rick may have had the same sort of experience.

Conclusion

Terrence Malick movies are like onions. Remove a layer, and there’s always another one to explore. And sometimes they can make your eyes burn, too.

The nudity here is pervasive and lingering. Rick’s philandering, after all, isn’t just an unfortunate adjunct, it’s inexorably entwined to the story itself.

Then there are the frequent allusions to the Tarot and counter-Christian spirituality.

Peel past those layers, though, and the movie moves from sour to sweet. Knight of Cups is ultimately the story of a man who, like some country song somewhere, was looking for love—and meaning—in all the wrong places. And, in time, that simple truth becomes obvious to him.

While we could leave it there, Malick seems to be trying to take it one step further—insinuating that love and meaning is found, finally, in God.

“My son,” Rick’s father tells us, even as he doesn’t directly tell Rick himself, “I know you. I know you have a soul.”

Knight of Cups—the name of which comes from that problematic figure of the Tarot whose garments are covered with symbolic fish—is ultimately a quest for a pearl, Rick’s own soul.

But the onion still stings.

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Paul Asay

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.