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At 29, Darren Aronofsky catapulted to filmmaking stardom with a little independent film called Pi, a mind-bending thriller about a mathematician obsessed with a numerical code of grand-unifying proportions. Now, eight years later, after the creation of both Requiem for a Dream and a child (with actress Rachel Weisz), Aronofsky is back with The Fountain, a mind-bending thriller about a scientist obsessed with a life-saving experiment. Needless to say, Aronofsky himself is a little bit obsessed with crafting science-fictional universes.

The 37-year-old writer-director says he was always interested in science—his father taught the subject—but he was never particularly good at it in high school. He instead studied filmmaking and animation at Harvard University.

The Fountain, Aronofsky says, was inspired by a series of conversations he had with Ari Handel, his former Harvard roommate, who has a PhD in neuroscience from New York University’s Center for Neural Science. In 1999, Handel and Aronofsky began to discuss the search for the Fountain of Youth and how ideas can interconnect like a Russian doll, with one fitting inside the other.

“I think science is a very structured way to analyze the spiritual world. But sometimes there is a touch of magic that you can’t put your finger on.”

In the film, these multiple layers involve three parallel storylines revolving around a man (Hugh Jackman) searching for a cure for his wife’s terminal brain tumor. Past and future narratives interweave with the present: Weisz stars as both the man’s beloved and the Queen of Spain, and Jackman is a Spanish conquistador in search of the Fountain of Youth and a futuristic astronaut trying to hold onto eternal life and love. Rest assured, it all makes sense in the end—more or less.