Stuck in the shallows

The New World begins and ends with water, imagery that makes it clear where director Terrence Malick, in his much-anticipated follow-up to 1998’s The Thin Red Line, is coming from. Water is a medium of voyage and discovery, and the world that lies beyond it is indeed “new.” It’s America as seen by 17th-century English adventurer Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell), who finds and loses love with Pocahontas (Q’orianka Kilcher), the Powhatan woman who saves his life.