I attended last night’s Los Angeles premiere of To The Wonder, and I had exactly the same reaction as I did last September in Toronto. It’s a beautifully shot object d’art, but it helps to know what it doesn’t do going in. Terrence Malick‘s decision to shoot a drama about things not working out between a couple with next to no dialogue certainly has integrity. I don’t know how many times Olga Kurylenko (who plays Ben Affleck‘s French wife who winds up stranded and gasping for air in Bartlesville, Oklahoma) twirls around in this film, but she does it a lot.
To The Wonder costars Olga Kurylenko, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams.
(l. tor.) McAdams, Affleck, Green, Kurylenko, Gonda.
Affleck (who’s put on a few pounds since the Oscar telecast) offered some pre-screening remarks alogn with producers Sarah Green and Nicholas Gonda, and got a laugh when he noted that what he’d just said amounted to more dialogue that he has in the film.
The screening and the after-party were held inside the Pacific Design Center. I said hello to James Woods, who’s crafty and convincing in Phillip Noyce‘s Mary and Martha, an HBO drama debuting on 4.20, and to Killing Them Softly director-writer Andrew Dominik.
On the way out I asked Green if the Malick film formerly known as Lawless has a new title. Not yet, she said. I told her I’d read a riff about Knight of Cups possibly going to Cannes based on an understanding that it’s closer to being completed than the film formerly known as Lawless. Green said she didn’t know and that the ball is in Terry’s court, etc. I’m presuming that sections of both will be shown to buyers, at least.
Most of To The Wonder was shot in Bartlesville, and I noticed for the first time last night that it contains two shots of a large, second-story-balcony home that looks a lot like the one bought and used for the forthcoming adaptation of August: Osage County, which was also shot in Bartlesville and nearby Pawhuska. For all I know the Bartlesville area has five or ten homes that look like this.
The event sponsors were Disaronno ( an Italian liqueur) and Fiji Water.
