Terrence Malicks first directorial credit is a short film he made in 1969. Since then he's averaged one feature every nine years. (His last was The Thin Red Line in 1998; the last before that was Days of Heaven in 1978; so if anything his work schedule is picking up of late.) What does he do with all this time? At the very least, he makes films in which every shot is breathtakingly beautiful, and - without exception - tells their stories by including nature as one of the characters. One unfavourable critic remarked: "...Malick may not care much for people, but he never met a tree he didn't like"; if you're like me, you'll feel enough defiance when you read this put-down to be more eager to see the film rather than less.

At any rate Malick's style and preoccupations could not be better suited to the story, with Europeans colonising, and losing themselves in, the lush New World of early 17th-century Virginia. One of the settlers, history's only famous John Smith (Farrell), forms a bond with teenaged Native American girl Pocahontas (Kilcher), who ultimately saves his life. Malick manages to be reasonably true to events and touching at the same time.