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**
Dir: Terrence Malick (15, 129 mins)
The once far from prolific director of Badlands and The Thin Red Line returns with another ponderous, over hashed tale of meandering characters, this time meandering in the music scene of Austin, Texas. To the Wonder and Knight of Cups, Malick’s most recent films have had plenty of twirling camerawork and listless characters you can’t really care for. This, unfortunately, is more of the same, following Rooney Mara as a listless estate agent, Ryan Gosling as a pure of heart musician and Michael Fassbender as a dodgy producer. Two love triangles broadly intersect, with Natalie Portman shining in one of them as we follow these beautiful people laughing together and being bored and breaking up and not much else. The attempts at profundity seem laboured despite the best efforts of the cast, but the fluid structure ultimately frustrates. Malick is a gifted film-maker who seems to have neglected storytelling for insubstantial navel-gazing.
Opens July 7