ryangoslinggraziaImage: Song To Song movie

After his starring role in Oscar-nominated juggernaut La La Land (which may win him the Academy Award for Best Actor) Ryan Gosling is going back to his indie film roots.

The trailer has just been released for Song To Song, the compelling Terrence Malick-directed love story set against a backdrop of the music scene in Austin, Texas, and it shows Gosling in familiar territory as a mysterious musician type in love with a female guitarist, played by Rooney Mara.

But like his previous films Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond The Pines, this love story is a complicated one with a dark, gritty side that spirals out of control when his life intersects with that of a sly-seeming music producer (Michael Fassbender) and his lover, played by Natalie Portman. From what we can tell from the trailer, the couples’ lives become entangled aided by drugs and the highs-and-lows of the rock and roll world.

Anyone prone to a school girl-like adoration of Gosling (you are certainly not alone) should be forewarned of the knee-weakening moment at the start of the trailer when he tells Mara, upon approaching her at a party “I didn’t know why I was coming to this party, and then I saw you and I thought ‘that’s why’”.

According to the compelling trailer, set to different covers of Del Shannon’s Runaway, Song To Song seems destined to be a hit with film critics when it premieres at SXSW in Austin next month, as well as with the music scene –  Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Iggy Pop are among the musicians that make appearances in the film.

Song To Song doesn’t have an Australian release date yet, but given the peak popularity Gosling is currently enjoying, an announcement can’t be far away.