Interesting movie that stays with you

It’s great. For a debut director to trust that an audience will stick with the film despite it almost trying to alienate you is some bravura shit.

I think the key is that we empathise with their victims, who are brief windows of sanity in the vapid universe occupied by these two delusional sociopathic kids.

That haunting feel of that vapid universe is what stays with you long after the credits.

Although there is always a subjective quality to films, I believe your interpretation puts into words rather nicely what the director was trying to convey. There is a pervading and lingering note of vacuity throughout the film, as the morally bankrupt protagonists mirror the barren landscape which they inhabit.

Perhaps the most interesting element is a scene where Kit and Holly are staying in the rich man's house. As they peruse the objects, each character withdrawing into themselves, a knock is heard on the door. When Kit opens, we see Terrence Malick carrying blueprints. The blueprints not only represent Malick's character as the architect, but Malick himself as the writer and director of the film. Just as the character he portrays would like to leave a message to the rich man, so too does Malick wish to leave a message to the audience. We subsequently see Kit, realizing the inherent risk of lingering in the mansion any longer, quickly discard the note and tell Holly to pack her bags, as they must move on. What this scene subtly intimates is that just as Kit neglects to read the architect's message, so too has the audience neglected to read Malick's.

A similar meta-narrative display is seen in The Shining, where during the maze scene, Jack, in following Danny's footsteps, gets lost. What this symbolizes is that the indexical quality of the footprints; that is, what the audience sees, is not to be taken at face value. The footprints—much like the symbols and images in the film—have led Jack astray, just like the audience.