A Terrence Malick movie is like a box of chocolates — you never know what you're going to get. Especially if you're in the cast. Ever since "The Thin Red Line," Malick has earned a reputation for being somewhat ruthless when it comes to cutting actors (Adrien Brody went from being the lead in that film to practically a glorified extra), and even for "The Tree of Life," there are dozens of stills floating around that depict countless scenes that were shot and excluded from the finished film. And thus, with "To the Wonder" shortly to premiere at the Venice Film Festival, it appears one high-profile name won't be seen in the film that runs just under two hours long.
According to recent piece on Rachel Weisz in the Italian outlet La Stampa (via The Film Stage), she is quoted as saying “I had the experience of working with him [Malick] but I will not have the pleasure of seeing my work.” The paper also added that “it seems that [her] part has been cut.” It's a bummer, but not a shock either. As folks will remember, Jessica Chastain also did a brief stint on the shoot, but she herself told us last year she didn't expect to make the final cut either.
Described as a film that's even "more experimental" than "The Tree of Life" (whatever that means…more dinosaurs?), the story centers on Ben Affleck's character who jets to Europe, meets a woman (Olga Kurylenko), returns to America and marries her, only to reunite with a childhood sweetheart (Rachel McAdams). According to a very early report, Weisz was to play Dinah, a friend of Affleck's "who can't bear to see [him] hurting himself."
As for who else may have been snipped, it should be noted that the TIFF site for the movie only lists Affleck, Kurylenko, McAdams and Javier Bardem as part of the cast. So yeah, things aren't looking too good for Barry Pepper, Michael Sheen or Amanda Peet, who also participated in the movie as well.
But we'll find out shortly. "To the Wonder" hits Venice and TIFF and then….your guess is as good as ours, as the film still needs a U.S. distributor.
That's very disappointing.
Terrence Malick films are like Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmerman. Sure, you *could* eat octopus sperm, and it is pretty unique as far as meals go. But why in the world would you? Unique does not equal good, Terrence.
"experimental" = a surplus of time/narrative shifts and less dialogue. Malick has a different crew of editors (save for 2, Mark Yoshikawa beong one of them) that are enabling his desire to shift toward more abstraction, which he has been leaning toward since The New World.
Do you know what experimental means? or…
Off topic- the first clip to Korine's SPRING BREAKERS is online.
"Described as a film that's even 'more experimental' than 'The Tree of Life' (whatever that means…more dinosaurs?)" hahaha
I saw it ( I will not say how) and I will only say this, the actors who were cut from this movie were the lucky ones. If you thought "The Tree of Life" was polarizing, this film is just as bad and maybe a bit worse.
And Rachel played Affleck's sister, not friend. That first report is very wrong.
I'm not interested without Chastain and Weisz. Affleck, McAdams and Kunrylenko aren't good enough actors to pay money to see them in a drama. No thank you.
Does anyone know when a trailer will be released? This and Place Beyond the Pines… seems like they are deliberately delaying a trailer?
I love playing this game every time a Malick movie comes out! I think TOL may be the only film of his "ensemble" films that remained as close to the original casting as possible? Also, when his double feature w/ Bale comes out in say 10-25 years, this game is going to be even more fun. 20 dollars says Imogen Poots and the blonde from Transformers are both cut! Hell, maybe he will make us all super happy and cut Natalie Portman too?
Don't try jokes, guys. You're very bad at it.
Terry is truth, this movie will make us believe in the power