The Tree

The Tree (2010) is a drama starring Charlotte Gainsbourg that you can watch online on iFILM. The O'Neills lead a happy life in rural Australia until the father, Peter, dies without warning and the whole household tilts off its axis.

Dawn is left alone with four children, and each of them grieves in a different way. The hardest hit is eight-year-old Simone, who flatly refuses the loss: she is certain her dad now lives inside the giant fig tree beside the house and speaks to her through its leaves. As Dawn slowly steadies herself, returns to work and edges toward a new romance, the tree keeps spreading — roots cracking the pipes, branches forcing their way through the windows. Sooner or later it has to come down. Simone won't allow it. Morgana Davies plays the girl, with Marton Csokas as the man stepping into Dawn's life.

French director Julie Bertuccelli adapted Judy Pascoe's novel into an intimate family drama that closed the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. The tree is no tidy symbol here; it's a living presence that breathes, expands and physically pins the family in place while they learn to let go. A quiet, luminous film about grief without the melodrama — for viewers who follow feeling over plot. Stream The Tree (2010) online on iFILM.