Holy Smoke

Well I don't think that Holy Smoke is just man hating. It makes everyone look like an idiot!

Ruth played by English born Kate Winslet (The Titanic, Heavenly Creatures) is a sweet young Aussie Girl who has gone to India and been so imssed by a local religious guru that she's thrown on a sari and become a believer.

Mum and Dad (Julie Hamilton and Tim Robertson), back in their kitsch suburban Sydney Woy Woy home, hire at great expense a de programmer from America to bring their little girl back into the Aussie fold.

Mum heads off to India and tricks Ruth into coming home. They then they plop their beloved daughter into a desolate desert hut with this middle aged sharp shooter called P.J. Walters. He's played by Harvey Keitel.

Walters embarks on a three day program which he's used repeatedly to sway young believers but soon the film turns to its dominant purpose which is the deprogramming of the deprogrammer. P.J. is reduced to slopping about the desert in a red dress and lipstick wailing about how he loves Ruth.

Now that could be O.K., even interesting, if Campion had concentrated enough of the film's energies upon this conflict and its resolution.

Perhaps Campion just tried to cover too much territory but there's nothing that is justified adequately in this film and everyone is made to look foolish.

For instance Ruth is defiant, then she's shown a couple of videos about cults. She instantly falls to pieces it seems, rips her clothes off, pees on her legs and then falls into P.J.'s arms, not long after she'd been abusing him.

She's either unhinged or in sume control, we're never sure of which, but it's unlikely that she could be both. Campion's famous film The Piano told of a desperate woman winning against the odds but argued its case much better.

Around this morass of fuzzy motivations and strange actions in Holy Smoke we have typical Australians. They keep merino sheep in the lounge room sumably for use as a moveable snack table.

Some are gay and wear see through cowboy gear. Or they're stupidly horny (this one is played by Sophie Lee) and will want to instantly root P.J. sumably just because he's new in town, twenty years older and a supercilious bastard.

Mum and Dad, reminiscent of Campion's earlier film Sweetie, are dumb and provincial. There's no one who can spout a sentence more than five words long other than P.J and Ruth.

Thank goodness the hut was near the Flinder's Ranges because as we'd expect they look magnificent but how on earth did we get from Woy Woy to South Australia. And where did they go for the party?

Are we expected to believe that The Angels would play Quorn or Hawker? We Australians do have some sense of geography for heaven's sake.

And why Kate Winslet as Ruth. Her Aussie accent was impeccable,remarkable in fact, but why not say Toni Collette for the part. But she would have had more sense thah to get mixed up with this sort of rubbish.