MovieChat Forums > The Tree of Life (2011) Discussion > Question about the brothers

Question about the brothers

posted 9 years ago by tedpikul456
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Hello everyone,
Just had a quick question regarding the young brothers in this film. Like many here I greatly admire Malick's work, and this film was no exception.
The one thing that confused me in this film had to do with the amount of brothers that were in the family. I thought initially that there were three brothers (the blonde one that really looked like brad, tye sheridan, and jack).
My question is which brother died that sean penn and jessica chastain are mourning in the film. And secondly how many brothers are there? My understanding is that the brother they refer to as dying when he was 19 is one of the three leading boys we see throughout, but besides them i was under the impression one of the boys died drowning. Then there was the boy who was burned in the fire (who for a while i was under the impression was tye sheridan until i saw them all together in one of the sequences towards the end).

[–] sam-ross83 9 years ago

Read the trivia, you might find it helpful. The brother that died was the blonde one, and he died by a car crash. That's why I'm the end we see the mother very happy to see him (I believe they are in heaven in the end or maybe it was just a dream). The boy that drowned was a friend, so was the boy that was burned. If you read the trivia you will see that the creators actual brothers both have passed. One killed himself at the age of 19 while studying music in Europe and the other died at the age of 60. The one that died at the age of 60 was in a car crash in Mexico a few years earlier that killed his wife and have him severe burns.