A Hidden Life is a work of genius, at last a justification of Malick’s late style.
New York Times December 12, 2019 [An] earnest, gorgeous, at times frustrating film.
Boston Globe December 18, 2019 The film is overlong but worthy, with Malick’s by-now-standard cinematic tics – couples frolicking idyllically in meadows, murmured pens...
Empire Magazine January 13, 2020 If you don’t like Malick’s movies, A Hidden Life won’t convert you. But this is the filmmaker on sublime form, putting his artist...
An ecstatic, anguished three-hour cinematic hymn … I am awed by parts of The New World, The Tree of Life and To The Wonder; A Hidden Life...
New Yorker December 9, 2019 When a giant stumbles, the thud is colossal.
A Hidden Life is another Terrence Malick nature poem, transforming a true tale of conscientious objection into a ravishing portrait of goodness in...
At last, the return to form that Malick’s loyal acolytes have spent most of this decade awaiting with an unshakable faith befitting the matte...
Toronto Star September 11, 2019 Malick falls prey yet again to the voice-over whispering and dreamy cloud-watching he relies on too much.
The Australian February 1, 2020 There is no doubt that A Hidden Life is a labour of love for Malick, but it will prove a challenge for audiences willing to experience th...
As usual, Malick’s style of storytelling is roundabout and allusive, but this time it seldom stalls.
Globe and Mail December 17, 2019 There is familiarity here, but sincerity too. This is all part of Malick’s cinematic forever quest for truth and beauty amidst a world t...
The drama lacks inner tension. Rather than wrestling with himself, as other Malick heroes do, Franz remains a noble waxwork helplessly true to...
Malick draws a critical distinction between faith and religion, calling out the failing of the latter - a human institution that’s...
Rolling Stone December 11, 2019 Malick’s return to form with the true story of a WW2 pacifist still seems like a miss as his focus drifts off into gorgeous shots of mou...
Little White Lies January 16, 2020 An exquisitely emotional and thorough account of an individual resisting state fascism.
With A Hidden Life and the story of Franz Jägerstätter, the director has found the ideal vehicle for his cosmic inquiries, and has created&nbs...
It quietly demands viewers wind down to become in sync with Jägerstätter’s rural life, a world of planting and harvesting, back-breaking labo...
This show of faith hasn’t come a moment too soon.
The film is almost a tone poem, focusing on conveying Franz and Fani’s emotions as they experience an event that barely registered durin...
We’re meant, I think, to see A Hidden Life as a story of a man fighting to stay true to his beliefs, but Malick never successfully sugge...
Associated Press December 16, 2019 Malick’s movie is deeply open-hearted, metaphysical and ruminative. But it might have benefited from being brought down to Earth.
The Atlantic December 14, 2019 It’s a decision Malick memorializes beautifully, in a film that is his most affecting effort in almost a decade.
News.com.au February 28, 2020 A Hidden Life is definitely on the long side, and there will be people whose patience may be exhausted, but if you give yourself over to it, it&rsq...
Detroit News December 19, 2019 It’s an environmental daydream and a human nightmare rolled into one, Mother Nature vs. human nature, and Malick delivers it with purpose.
It’s at once a linear, almost classically structured drama and an exploratory, intensely romantic work of art.
The Guardian January 20, 2020 Malick links the lonely labour of working the land with the thanklessness of sainthood, asking questions about devotion, tradition and individual a...
The lasting message is that faith, familial love and nature’s capacity for renewal outlast even the darkest times – and it comes through...
It is the best thing he’s done in a long time, and it is very very Terrence Malick, for all the good and bad that that means.
The Guardian May 20, 2019 Malick does succeed, to some degree, on his own terms; he attempts to give some (stylised) sense of this man’s inner life: his emotional and...
Vulture December 13, 2019 We shouldn’t be so smug as to assume that we would always know the right thing to do, or even be brave enough to do it, Malick seems to say...
TIME Magazine May 20, 2019 [It] may be visually beautiful, in a mountains-in-the-mist way. But what is it saying? What is it doing? And oh, dear God, is he showing us th...
Watching A Hidden Life feels like both going to church and performing penance, like Terrence Malick wants us to submit to the same ideological...
Chicago Sun-Times December 24, 2019 You admire this man and his devotion. You’re enraged by this man because nobody in the world will know or care about his sacrifice…
Terrence Malick’s film means to seek out souls caught in the tide of history, but which move against its current.
A Hidden Life is everything [Terrence] Malick’s devotees could want from a movie: beautiful, poetic, hewing closely to films like Days o...
The ending has real power, too, but much of the rest of the film is just plain dull – gorgeous to look at, but dull.
Malick’s message is clear: vanquishing evil requires individuals to take a stand, to recognise what is right and what is wrong.
Austin Chronicle December 19, 2019 [August] Diehl’s performance is a model of restraint; he more often imparts information by a look, a glance, the slump of his shoulders...
RogerEbert.com December 14, 2019 One of [Malick’s] finest films, and one of his most demanding.
Vanity Fair December 19, 2019 It’s about faith, pure and simple – though, in the end, A Hidden Life is anything but.
Jägerstätter’s story is almost brutally simple in outline, but Malick’s patient method wants to delve, little by little, into his soul.
Despite its faults, the film does indeed succeed in being a species of religious experience. It has a powerful sense of the immanence of life.
Financial Times January 15, 2020 Eyes may instinctively roll at Malick’s fixation with magical dawn and dusk light – confronted by real darkness, the result is his best...
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