Occasionally radiant drama mostly drowns in its own navel
SONG TO SONG Running time: 2hrs 8min Starring: Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Holly Hunter Director-screenwriter: Terrence Malick THOSE who followed rumours about Terrence Malick’s Song to Song, which made headlines years ago as the reclusive filmmaker took cast and crew into the thick of real-life music festivals, may be under the impression the Austin-set relationship film is about music. They should get over that idea before entering the theatre. Though its protagonists purportedly are musicians, Song to Song has as little to do with music-making as the majority of its settings – skyscraper condos with commanding views and cold interiors – have to do with the Old Austin that nurtured a famous music scene before techies and carpetbaggers took over the city.
Bizarrely, of the many musicians Malick uses as valueadded decor here, not one actually hails from this city. Which is just as well: for an Austinite inclined to recoil from this noodling, chilly film, how much worse would it be if Malick had treated a Britt Daniel, Gary Clark jr or Alejandro Escovedo with as little regard as he has for Iggy Pop and John Lydon? (Patti Smith, who drops in often, fares better, but her true stories of marriage and grief still play like window dressing.)
Ersatz local colour aside, suffice to say that Song to Song is not designed to win back one-time admirers who felt Malick’s To the Wonder and Knight of Cups drowned in their own navels. Though offering the occasional radiant moment, it is of a piece with those films, and is unlikely to fare much better at the box office. If it does, credit the draw of Ryan Gosling, whose younger fans will be wholly unprepared for what they get (and don’t get) here.
Malick’s storytelling pastes vast voice-over monologues across footage of characters frolicking their way through every piece of high-end real estate in Austin. Sequences move from location to location, and the film’s relationships are nearly as transient, dissolving before the viewer is quite convinced they actually exist. – Hollywood Reporter