Cannes, France - On paper, it looked enticing: a high-stakes drama of love and loss by Gus Van Sant starring Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey and Naomi Watts and mostly set in Japan.
But "The Sea of Trees", premiering Saturday in competition for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, landed with a thud at its press previews, garnering the first big boos of this year's edition.
The picture, also featuring Japanese actor Ken Watanabe, drew unintended laughs and derisive whistles from the Cannes crowd, never shy about audibly expressing its views.
Critics later called it "long-winded", "sticky and gooey" and culturally patronising.
French film magazine Premiere pronounced it "without a doubt the worst film by Gus Van Sant", "an awful melodrama made of pure sugar" and simply "interminable".
McConaughey's career has been flying high since he bagged an Academy Award last year for "Dallas Buyers Club" and critical adulation for his role in the television series "True Detective".
But his turn as Arthur, a bespectacled American mathematician who travels to Japan to commit suicide, looks to have been a career misstep.
In the film, Arthur performs a Google search looking for "the perfect place to die" and ends up wandering through a dense forest near the foothills of Mount Fuji that attracts dozens of depressed people each year.
But before he can take his own life at the spot of his choosing, he encounters Takumi, a mysterious injured Japanese man who has lost his way.
AFP
