Details don’t come easy whenever Terrence Malick makes a new movie. Between their secretive free-wielding productions from their notoriously media-scared writer/director, to their extensive post-production schedules where actors can find their entire performances left on the cutting room floor, you never know what you’re gonna get with Malick until the film plays before you.
That’s more or less the case with his Austin-set romantic drama Weightless as well. Set to premiere this March, we’ve actually learned a few new details about it today. For one, it’s now being called Song to Song and according to the official plot summary, it’ll follow “two entangled couples”:
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.
That’s rather vague and wide-reaching, as per usual with Malick’s synopses, but it does give us a better idea than before as to what we’ll get from The Tree of Life director’s follow-up to last year’s divisive Knight of Cups. In addition to the stars mentioned in the description above, we know that Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Haley Bennett, Val Kilmer, Benicio Del Toro, Holly Hunter, Clifton Collins Jr. and more filmed scenes during the extended production — as did musicians Patti Smith, Lykke Li, The Black Lips, Iggy Pop, Florence and the Machine and the Red Hot Chili Peppers — but we don’t know if they’ll play a role in the final product. .
Here’s what we do know, however: according to Fassbender, he’ll play a “Lucifer”-like figure, and shares some scenes with Pop and John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten, former lead singer of The Sex Pistols and current lead singer of Public Image Ltd. We’re definitely hoping that makes it into the final cut.
Song to Song arrives on March 17th via Broad Green Pictures.