Apart from noting that four costars in Terrence Malick‘s To The Wonder — Rachel Weisz, Barry Pepper, Michael Sheen and Amanda Peet — have been cut out of the final version, Deadline‘s Nancy Tartaglione is reporting from the Venice Film Festival that the film, due to screen on Sunday, “more closely resembles Badlands rather than, say, Tree of Life.”

This, at least, is what Tartaglione “understand[s]” from having spoken to some buyer or distributor or tipster of some kind.

If To The Wonder was some kind of substantive cousin of Badlands, which some contend is Malick’s best film ever, some kind of buzz to this effect would have surely seeped through by now. I’m not going to say any more except that I’m highly suspicious of this analogy.

What I don’t understand is why the headline for Tartaglione’s story states that “Terrence Malick Leaves Venice.” The story makes no mention of Malick having arrived in Venice in either a literal or metaphorical sense, and certainly no mention of his having left it.