Song to Song (2017)

The good news: beautiful pictures, imaginative music, and lush locations grace this dreamy "story" of relationships at the South by Southwest Festival. The bad: the movie (at 2:09) is too long by 30 minutes, the "story" is non-linear, and it's hard to tell in what order things happen. Much of the dialogue is in voice-over and, in fact, Ryan Gosling (last blogged for La La Land) was quoted as saying there was no script. I suspect that was an exaggeration but not totally outrageous. Rooney Mara (most recently in Lion) is well cast as the moody girl around whom most of the movie revolves, in liaisons with the cheerful Gosling (he sings one song but I could barely hear him) and the intense Michael Fassbender (last in Steve Jobs), and the relationships widen to include Natalie Portman (most recently in Jackie) and Cate Blanchett (last in Carol, co-starring there with Mara) and so many more. Punk musician Patti Smith and Swedish singer/songwriter Lykke Li (LEE-kay LEE) appear several times as themselves, along with Iggy Pop and a host of others (check the complete cast list).

I knew Jack would want to see this because he used to visit Austin TX (where SXSW is held every year) regularly and we're both fans of indie music. What I forgot before making plans to see it was that its director/writer is Terrence Malick, whose Tree of Life we hated for some of the same reasons. In fact, I did not tell him nor Ann, who accompanied us Sunday, before the screening that it was the same filmmaker. I didn't need to. They liked it less than I--I didn't mind the non-linearity nearly as much. But we all appreciated the glorious cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki (won his third Oscar in three years for The Revenant), Birdman, and Gravity), the Texas and Mexico locations, and the magnificent luxury homes.

This movie will make you sick if you are, like I am, a sufferer of MPMS (Motion Picture Motion Sickness) (see the running list here, in which I made a snarky remark about Tree of Life). Sit in the very last row and medicate as well as you can.

Knowing that this is a music movie, I checked imdb for the soundtrack info before seeing it. Frequently the songs are not all listed or not listed at all on that site. This time there are 75 songs on the imdb page. Glad I didn't have to count them live! No composer is credited.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are more in line with Jack and Ann, averaging 46%, while its audiences are at 60. I was grateful I had the closed caption device because the sound mix is as idiosyncratic as the writing and directing. While Ann said she might see it again just for the music, I would suggest waiting for it on your home screen. Be patient; the release hasn't yet been announced. You'll need that patience when you see it.