Song to Song

BV (Ryan Gosling) and Faye (Rooney Mara) are musicians. Cook (Michael Fassbender) is a producer. Rhonda (Natalie Portman) is a waitress. BV has a fling with Amanda (Cate Blanchett) and Faye with Zoey. These relationships start, conflict, stop, and detour in the Austin music scene.

Terrence Malick continues to make these beautiful-looking dreamlike movies. It's beyond beauty but the story telling is muddled. His style of filmmaking is deliberately disjointed which makes all these complicated relationships hard to follow. It's also emotionally distant. Mara and Gosling have these droning voices which don't help in this case. It's a beautiful movie but the complicated relationship jumping loses me along the way. There is a bit guerrilla filmmaking as Malick steals scenes during real music festivals. This would work much better with fewer relationships.

On the one hand, I liked that, for what seems like the first time since The New World Malick has actors as characters in scenes where they, you know, have dialog exchanges and we get to see how they interact and learn about each other. It's not a lot of the time, but it shows that when Malick sat down with the actors and, whether it was improvised or not, got them to figure out how these people would talk to one another, whatever shades (or not) of depth there would be - and this isn't just the main cast but, say, small scenes between Mara's Faye and Faye's father, or BV (Gosling) with his mother, or any of Patti Smith's scenes - it's a joy to see these actors work off one another. If Malick had actually been working from a script, as opposed to no script at all, he might have had one of his best films.

On the other hand, and I can't believe I'm saying this, I may be getting tired of "Chivo" Lubezki's cinematography, at least in this case after so many Malick films. It's a strange thing to say since when one sees The New World or especially The Tree of Life, they're nothing short of photographic tour-de-forces, things that we haven't seen in cinematic grammar before as far as how he uses the lenses and the natural light, at least in such a way as it is. But while he has the good instinct sometimes to push in or pull out on an actor when they're talking, and of course the light through (there are a lot of) windows, or outside, is beautiful (it can't help but be anything but and there's no synonyms left for it), I kind of wished there wasn't such a hodge-podge of technical approaches here.

And meanwhile on the one hand this is a film that has Iggy Pop, Flea and Patti Smith in cameos (and Smith even gets to have something like a character, probably more than Holly Hunter or Cate Blanchett probably), and it certainly captures the Austin music scene with vitality and energy and gets how it's intoxicating to see the audience and to be so close to the stage or backstage and, to another extent, hanging around Michael Fassbender (who, despite working without a script net, shows why he's so good as an actor first, movie star second, understanding how to just be in a room looking and listening can have weight). Also all of the main cast have insanely good chemistry together, both physically and mentally (mostly physically), and I think Gosling and Mara are a good fit for a Malick world.

On the other hand, this line: "I don't like to see the birds in the sky because I'll miss you" or this line "Mercy was a word. I never thought I needed it." Yeah.

And, on top of the narration which is, mostly here, the absolute worst that Malick's had in his films - some of it's laughable, other times it's horrible, and even in Knight of Cups I didn't feel this way, though to an extent I did with 'Wonder' - I felt bad for actors in the second half of the movie who seemed adrift, maybe with more character material on the cutting room floor (there's another *six hours* of this), like Blanchett or Berenice Marlohe. Both of these women play the love interests of the respective Gosling and Mara characters after they split up (why they do would both take too long and not be worth the effort for its simplicity), but even compared to everyone else I didn't get a sense of who they were as people.

I'm not talking about this as if it's a problem as far as something intentional that a filmmaker does where they leave some mystery with the people and we have to read into things (with Faye, I think Mara actually does a whole lot with a little, at least from what we can see, and her performance came the closest to making me care about a character on screen - I thought almost the same could've been for Portman's Rhonda, but she leaves the film for so long stretches I forgot that her conflict was so shallow, but I digress). What I mean is more that I had no idea why the two ex-lovebirds would go with these people, what they mean to them, what they do for them, and why Blanchett's character becomes so sad for not much reason (BV's mother warns him off of her at one point because... she's sad, that's it), and Marlohe gets even less.

So with Song to Song, I know it sounds like I'm coming down on it harshly, but it's because I expect a great deal from this director, and want him to do well. The problem though in general is that at 129 minutes it feels too long, which is a strange thing to note considering that there's, I must stress, SIX OTHER HOURS of footage, so I'm not sure if it could use being like 20 even 30 minutes shorter, or another hour longer or so. There's scenes that get surprisingly close to the emotional depths that Malick could get at back in his prime 70's days with his actors, and they're game for making a romance film full of highs and lows. But the more "Malick" touches with how memories and impressions and nature and the city of Austin and who knows what else blends in with the story is hit or miss at best and distractingly precious and bad at worst (I probably neglected to write down other glaringly dumb lines).

"The world wants to be deceived." Cook (Michael Fassbender)

Terence Malick's current cast of romantics are lost in themselves, searching how they can find fulfillment, largely through troubled relationships that on the surface look ethereal. Of course, that heavenly view happens because Malick's point of view is through his lens, which, with the help of his usual cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, is other-worldly gorgeous and impressionistic.

Although Malick has taken inspiration from trees and landscapes in many other films, here he takes pleasure in the angles of modern Austin architecture with its glass-dominated homes and their infinity pools. All the better for the heroes Faye (Rooney Mara) and BV (Ryan Gosling) to be constantly thinking of themselves as the center of the universe and those outside the glass a part of the menagerie to be neglected.

The fly in the ointment of love is producer Cook, who is after Faye and succeeding without BV knowing it. The eternal triangle seems to flourish for much of the film because Malick not only sees like a painter with just images to contend with, but he also concentrates more on the physical properties of his characters and their stories and less on the corrosive result of promiscuity.

The glue to the multiple images is the soundtrack, about as eclectic as you'll ever hear and changing with most sequences. The songs evoke mood and meaning as well as the remembered past, Reinforcing the dominance of music are cameos from the likes of Iggy Pop, Tegan and Sara, Anthony Kiedis, and Lykke.

Music and memory are the stuff of Song to Song. Along with Malick's incomparable images, you'll be fully immersed in the impressions of people caught in the act of using love to give meaning to life. Just don't expect a tour of the Austin music scene. It's all about impressions, Baby.

I'm not someone who thought there was nothing of worth in To The Wonder or Knight of Cups. However, they did seem to be treading a lot of unoriginal waters. Considering the reviews for Song to Song I also expected it to be around the same quality, but to my surprise I've finally seen Malick's true talent blossom again. I think this film is unique in his filmography up until this point. It tells a coherent story of intersecting characters' lives in its usual Malick way. I definitely think this is underrated and I hope people start to be more favorable towards it.

"Song to Song" (2017 release; 129 min.) brings the story of Faye. As the movie opens, we hear Faye announce in voice over "I went through a period where sex had to be violent", and with that we are off. Fay seems to have a relationship with both BV (a budding musician) and Cook (a record executive). We see them at various Austin landmarks and outdoor shows (ACL Music Festival, I assume). At this point we are about 10-15 min. into the movie, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest movie from writer-director Terrence Malick, Here he follows a path that s very similar of his previous film "Knight of Cups": essentially an abstract film about relationships, with not much dialogue but plenty of voice-over thoughts ("Any experience is better than no experience" and "I went along like someone in a dream", just to give you a glimpse). This movie was actually shot in 2011-12, and is only now seeing the light of day. Rumor has it that Malick had 8 hours of film which he had to cut down to this final version, just over 2 hrs., and when you are watching it, it does feel like we skip from scene to scene without any sense or purpose. As for the lead actors (Rooney Mara as Faye, Ryan Gosling as BV, Michael Fassbender as Cook; Natalie Portman appears about a half hour into the movie for some scenes; yet later Cate Blanchett, as a fling of BV, makes her entrance), it feels like most of what they are doing seems improvised. Not much of it makes sense or is coherent in any way, shape or form. Tons of cameos from the music world (RHCP, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Johnny Lydon, etc., mostly in a blink and you'll miss it moment). As a long-time fan and admirer of Terrence Malick, it pains me to tell you that, on the heels of the so-so Knight of Cups, this is even worse. Given the all-star ensemble cast, what a colossal waste of talent all around!

"Song to Song" opened this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati, and given who all was involved in this production, I couldn't wait to see it. The Saturday matinée screening where I saw this at was attended okay but not great. "Song to Song" is not a movie that I can recommend to anyone, although there may be some curiosity about this film, given the all-star cast attached to it. Viewer beware! (*UPDATE* The movie sank like a stone at the box office, and disappeared after just one week from the theater here in Cincinnati.)