A Hidden Life Review

The visually unwavering and spiritually challenging wartime drama A Hidden Life by celebrated writer/director Terrence Malick is a touching and powerful meditation of a person’s faith and the lengths they’ll go to protect it from corruption. Although the film is powered by a sweeping love story and a production design that creates an incredibly lived in community atop the vast valleys of South Tyrol, many moments within the extensive narrative can feel dull or stretched out. Malick’s story never goes off track but lingers on certain moments and themes for too long, creating elements of the film that manage to hold emotional weight but feel slow and overdone throughout the inflated runtime. Fortunately, Malick’s experience at the helm helps protect the film from ever feeling stale, resulting in a mesmeric vision that projects the struggles of dignity and turmoil through a fitting yet somewhat flawed implementation.

Taking place during WWII, A Hidden Life chronicles the fast-spreading Nazi idealisms created by the Third Reich through the perspective of married Austrian farmers Franz and Franziska Jägerstätter. When their small village begins to welcome the Nazi soldiers and philosophies in, Franz starts to question the purpose of the war and what he truly believes in. Franz’s openness about his lack of faith and confusion for the war efforts brand him an objector and traitor within his village, causing the town to shun him and his family. When Franz is called to serve, he ultimately refuses to vow his life to Hitler and the Third Reich, so they imprison him. Now with his life in jeopardy, Franz must find out how attached to his faith and beliefs he truly is.

The tale of A Hidden Life creates beautiful artistry from the sprawling landscapes and stunning locales, with a story that can often build and release tension anxiously. But the elegant shots from Malick can become hindered by the film's jumpy and fragmented editing that ultimately distracts more than it proves effective. There’s a stunning poeticism instilled in every scene that keeps the viewer emotionally invested, but there are moments that are unable to achieve the same poignancy as others.

The time that’s devoted to building the lead protagonists played by August Diehl and Valerie Pachner creates characters that have immense depth at the price of introducing major conflicts later. It’s an interesting direction that doesn’t always pay off, creating moments that are emotionally resonant but glacially paced. It’s an issue that Malick seems to avoid throughout the last act, but these moments can sometimes make it a challenge to get to that point.

Overall, A Hidden Life is a dissection of the morals that faith and religion can invoke and an examination of dignity. Told throughout gorgeous mountainous backdrops, A Hidden Life is an atmospheric and powerful story that rises above its tedious moments and distracting editing, resulting in an interesting and expressive test of character.

The stunning locales and production design partnered with Terrence Malick’s stylistic direction helps lay a remarkable visual foundation that helps elevate A Hidden Life past its odd editing and sometimes drab narrative.

Produced By: Fox Searchlight
Runtime: 173 minutes
Rating: NR