Terrence Malick’s New Film Gets Title, Plot Summary, Release Date

A brief personal anecdote: I had the good fortune of attending the Austin City Limits music festival in 2012, where I caught an outdoor set by Atlanta indie rock outfit the Black Lips. During the performance, I spotted an unfamiliar figure gripping a guitar onstage, a young woman who looked suspiciously similar to Rooney Mara. I’d find out the next day that she, Ryan Gosling, and Terrence Malick had come to town to slyly shoot some footage for an untitled project about the Austin local music scene. It was neat at the time, but over the past five years, I had forgotten all about it.

Until now; I’m pleased to announce that I, ScreenCrush contributor Charles Bramesco, am the star of Terrence Malick’s next film. (By which I mean I might be in the background of one scene.) That project was announced today as Song to Song, a change from the working title Weightless, and an exclusive from Indiewire has all the details. The most exciting? That we’ve only got to wait a couple more months before it debuts on March 17.

The fact that Song to Song is happening at all is pretty major, considering the evidently long-gestating status of the feature. Indiewire provides a summary of the premise as follows:

In this modern love story set against the Austin, Texas music scene, two entangled couples — struggling songwriters Faye (Rooney Mara) and BV (Ryan Gosling), and music mogul Cook (Michael Fassbender) and the waitress whom he ensnares (Natalie Portman) — chase success through a rock ‘n’ roll landscape of seduction and betrayal.

Sounds like a continuation of Malick’s depiction of the entertainment biz in the recent Knight of Cups, focused on the physical as much as the spiritual. The film will also feature a host of cameos from established musical talents, including Patti Smith, Lykke Li, Iggy Pop, Florence and the Machine, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and as mentioned, the Black Lips. What really matters here is the following, and in order: The infamously un-prolific Malick has finished another film, it will feature Natalie Portman in a blonde wig, and I could be in it. 2017 just got its first major arthouse release.

See the first official photo below: