Song to Song (2017)

Film: Song to Song
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Holly Hunter, Patti Smith
Director: Terrence Malick
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Few once-lauded directors have become easier punching bags in modern pop culture than Terrence Malick.  The deeply-private (he doesn't care for being called a recluse, though it might not be far from the truth), director has a style unlike pretty much any other filmmaker's working today, creating complicated, occasionally frustrating but always fascinating visual poems for the screen.  I am an ardent admirer of his work, and am currently in the process of trying to see everything he's ever done (anyone who can point me in the direction of a way to see Voyage of Time is about to become my new best friend), and have not given into the fashion of slamming his three most recent films, considering To the Wonder to be a masterpiece and Knight of Cups to be a fascinating if occasionally (too) boundless movie.  His most recent film Song to Song seems to have been the final in a trilogy of this experimental style (Malick has stated his next picture, which is somewhere in its production, will have a tighter narrative structure, though considering this is Terry we're talking about that could mean anything...it could also mean the movie won't be out for another twenty years, though it's rumored for a Spring 2019 release).  Either way, we do have Song to Song thankfully, and as I finally just caught it, I figured it was due a review on the blog.

(Spoilers Ahead) Like so many of his pictures, trying to define this in terms of actual plot is impossible.  The movie, though it has names for its characters, doesn't really use them-I think the only time anyone uses their name is Rooney Mara's Faye, and it's simply mouthed softly rather than something you can hear.  The movie takes a look at a romance between Faye and BV (Gosling), too aspiring musical artists, the latter of whom is enjoying more success than the former.  They enter the world of a record producer Cook (Fassbender), who promises to make all of their dreams come true and shows them in lavish, impossibly-gorgeous mansions and situations, but instead their relationship starts to drag apart.  In between that time, we see all three explore relationships with other people, with BV entering into an ultimately tragic romance with a waitress named Rhonda (Portman), and Gosling romancing Amanda (Blanchett, who I believe was uncredited despite a pretty substantial role in the film by Malick's standards, certainly more so than Holly Hunter's blink-and-you-missi-it performance as Portman's mother), but ultimately he returns to both his simple life on a drilling rig and Faye returns to him, their love sustaining them in a way their musical careers could not.

Song to Song has considerably more structure than Knight of Cups, so critics being divided on this film while seeming to prefer the former on such grounds feels a bit absurd.  The dialogue here isn't as crisp or as meaningful as his previous pictures, and in many ways Song to Song proves that it was To the Wonder that started a trilogy rather than The Tree of Life, the 2011 movie that restarted Malick's career but has considerably more narrative force than any of his three later (fictional) pictures.  The movie has a heavy use of cameos, including Val Kilmer as a mentally-ill rocker and a number of real-life musicians, including a terrific bit by Patti Smith as herself, inspiring the young guitarist Faye.

The movie's best moments are when Malick is using extended visuals to tell the stories rather than his heavy reliance on narration and shorter film cuts, as it's clear the lack of a traditional screenplay forces Mara, Fassbender, and Gosling to all say things in voice-over that feel like something you'd find on a coffee mug you buy from Hallmark.  Still, there's a lot to offer here.  I think the acting is improved from both of its companion pieces, particularly Mara & Blanchett (until I wrote that sentence it didn't occur to me that this was a Carol reunion...sadly they don't share the screen at all here).  Fassbender's story gets lost, but Gosling & Mara make their relationship work.  This isn't the masterwork that Malick is capable of, but it's not the obvious, easily derided work that so many people thought it was, and Malick is distinctive enough for a proper cinephile to find certain sequences brilliant, particularly when they seem to borrow a visual style from To the Wonder and Knight of Cups to make all three feel like Warhol-esque versions of the same picture.  I do hope that his next film finds something new to say within his distinctive style, but Song to Song, like all of Malick's works, is gorgeous and worth the investment.