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.