1999 · drama · romance · cult
Holy Smoke!
Directed by Jane Campion1h 55m1999
While on a journey of discovery in exotic India, beautiful young Ruth Barron falls under the influence of a charismatic religious guru. Her desperate parents then hire PJ Waters, a macho cult de-programmer who confronts Ruth in a remote desert hideaway. But PJ quickly learns that he's met his match in the sexy, intelligent and iron-willed Ruth.
Our read: Holy Smoke! (1999) reads as a neutral, steady, inventive drama · romance · cult entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook.
Neutral, steady, measured drama / romance, inventive in texture. Ambivalent, intimate, measured.
- intense
Watching Holy Smoke! tonight? Spin for your lens.
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How Holy Smoke! feels to watch.
Each axis is scored by hand, not from votes or genre averages. The bar uses the film's own colours.
What watching it is actually like.
“You want a wild cult-deprogramming duel of wills between Kate Winslet and Harvey Keitel.”
Skip it tonight — Skip if explicit sexual power games and chaotic Campion tone will embarrass everyone present.
Eight films that feel like this one.
Closest in the twelve-axis space, not “people also liked”. All films like Holy Smoke!, with why →
Discussion
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