It hasn’t been an easy road to release for “The Sea of Trees,” which was soundly rejected at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, searching for a brave distributor after its initial critical drubbing. Finally seeing the light of day, the latest effort from director Gus Van Sant is also one of his worst, asking the audience to remain intimate with a morbid soap opera that’s overlong and dramatically undernourished. While offering committed performances, “The Sea of Trees” is intolerable at times, finding Van Sant unable to make sense of Chris Sparling’s screenplay, keeping emotions pronounced and pacing minimal as the helmer takes a good long look at the end of hope and the birth of survival. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com