La La Land wasn't for everyone. There are many people whose cold, dead hearts couldn't be warmed by the gridlocked California highways or Ryan Gosling's smile. That's OK! There are other options. There's the Polish musical about mermaids who eat human flesh, and for the hipsters who used their parents money to once attend South By Southwest, there's Song to Song.
Directed by Terrence Malick, the film stars Ryan Gosling, Michael Fassbender, Rooney Mara, and Natalie Portman as bohemian white music industry people locked in what looks like a really fun love triangle (or cube?). The film description says they "chase success through a rock 'n' roll landscape of seduction and betrayal." But really, what could go wrong here? If you have to choose between Gosling, Fassbender, Mara, or Portman to do drugs and go to concerts with, you've already won. Regardless, like his other work, Malick's Song to Song looks like a stylistic masterclass in romanticism. Also, Gosling sings a song that's not "City of Stars."
The film debuts 17 March during SXSW for anyone sober enough to sit through a movie. Watch the first trailer below, where you might catch a bunch of musician cameos, including who I'm pretty certain is Iggy Pop at the 54-second mark:
