Fox Searchlight has just nabbed the rights to distribute Terrence Malick's "A Hidden Life," a film so perplexing that even at the "high-brow" Cannes Film Festival there were hundreds of walkouts at the initial press screening on Monday afternoon. Don’t believe me? I was there. The film itself is incredibly problematic — you can read my review of it here. Regardless, this shows Fox must be in don’t-give-a-damn mode when it comes to buying, a now-or-never attitude towards nabbing a few Oscars before they are officially Disney property next year. However, Malick's latest film might not do it for them.
The theatrical version runs 108 minutes, so we're talking a nearly 2-hour-10-minute cut of a movie that works because it's lean, and I'm not sure anyone needs that.