Matthew McConaughey’s remarkable comeback streak in recent years — the so called “McConaissance” — hit a bump at the Cannes Film Festival premiere of Gus Van Sant’s “The Sea of Trees.”
The film, about two men (McConaughey, Ken Watanabe) who find each other in a Japanese “suicide forest,” was greeted harshly by critics and was loudly booed in its initial screenings to Cannes media. Van Sant recalled that films of his have previously drawn divisive responses in Cannes. His Palme d’Or-winning school shooting drama “Elephant,” he said, caused a fist-fight between festival audience members.
