Image from new Terrence Malick movie hints at his 'Blue Valentine' moment

Image from new Terrence Malick movie hints at his ‘Blue Valentine’ moment

Feb. 24, 2011 12:18 PM PT

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Even as we’re finally starting to know just a little bit more about Terrence Malick’s ‘The Tree of Life,’ the clues are starting to dribble out for the reclusive auteur’s follow-up movie, which he began shooting in the fall and whose release hopefully won’t require a decade-long Malickian wait.

The untitled film stars Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Rachel Weisz and Olga Kurylenko. (Affleck replaced Christian Bale, so no Micky Ward/Batman here). Film Nation, the company that sold rights to the project and helped finance it, has just released the above photo, after offering last year that the movie is a ‘romantic drama’ and a ‘powerful and moving love story.’

The image doesn’t contradict that description, though it doesn’t exactly provide more detail either. It does suggest tortured romance a la ‘Blue Valentine’ (Malick has tackled relationships before, though usually of the more twisted variety, like Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek in ‘Badlands’) and plenty of anguish. In that way, at least, it feels a little like a companion piece to ‘Tree of Life,’ whose trailer conveys more than a small dose of existential despair.

There’s also an open-plains feel to the photo, a longtime Malick preoccupation and something undoubtedly present in ‘Tree of Life.’

In addition to raising the usual comparisons (and unanswerable questions) for Malick, the image evokes Affleck in a leading-man romantic role, something he tried again for the first time in a while with this past fall’s ‘The Town.’ As for McAdams, the image reminds that she’s done the tortured romance back in 2009, though here’s hoping Affleck doesn’t do much time-traveling.

--Steven Zeitchik

twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

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Steven Zeitchik

Steven Zeitchik is a former Los Angeles Times staff writer who covered film and the larger world of Hollywood for the paper from 2009 to 2017, exploring the personalities, issues, content and consequences of both the creative and business (and, increasingly, digital) aspects of our screen entertainment. He previously covered entertainment beats at Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, has contributed arts and culture pieces to the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times and has done journalistic tours of duty in Jerusalem and Berlin. While at The Times he has also reported stories in cities ranging from Cairo to Krakow, though Hollywood can still seem like the most exotic destination of all.