Paul Walker Movie:

Editorial Review:
Aussie director Jane Campion's one of a kind. Forget money and fame; she's inspired by the pleasure of sharing her cinematic dreams with friends and film audiences. Her globetrotting heroines (Angel at My Table, The Piano, Portrait of a Lady) may be willful, crazed, self-absorbed, wrong--but who can resist joining these passionate women on their voyages of self-discovery, whether they lead to safe harbor or dead end?

Holy Smoke opens deliriously in a magical India, saturated with light, color, sensuality. Celebrated by Neil Diamond's anthem, "Holly Holy," Ruth Baron (Kate Winslet, delivering a breathtakingly luminous performance) explores a world that encourages spiritual epiphany--and falls hard for the cartoonish guru who opens her "third eye." Back home in Australia, her hilariously dysfunctional, distinctly down-to-earth family hires hotshot deprogrammer PJ Waters (Harvey Keitel, his dyed hair and cowboy boots telegraphing desperate machismo) to cure Ruth. In an isolated Outback shack, Campion's duo wrestle each other for control of their souls--and bodies, too. This duel's in deadly earnest: Ruth assaults Waters's petrified masculinity; PJ aims to strip this radiant girl of her unexamined faith.

Their wild ride--funny, brutal, erotic--toward brand-new selfhood is punctuated by indelible images: Ruth dancing in a white sari beside an emu corral; naked in the night, Ruth offering her lush body to her tormentor; lost in the desert, cross-dressed in red gown, PJ "saved" by a golden vision of Ruth as a magnificent Indian goddess. For those who love the way movies can sometimes project truth and beauty, Holy Smoke is a feast for the eyes--and for the mind. --Kathleen Murphy

Holy Smoke! Reviews:
Horrible, but it could have been such a great story
2009-08-07 - Kate Winslet is a fantastic actress. The DVDs of "Enigma," "Sense and Sensibility," "The Holiday," "the Reader," and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" are on my shelves, and I know that I will be watching them all again and again for years to come. And I know she'll gift us with many great performances in the future. (and I loved Harvey Keitel's performance in "Pulp Fiction" and while "Bad Lieutenant" was grim, it was at least interesting).

But "Holy Smoke!" totally misses the mark. The idea of Kate Winslet being brainwashed by a cult and then getting locked in a house for three days with a deprogrammer with issues of his own could have been such a great story...if only they had played it straight as the utterly serious and tragic subject that something like that happening would be in real life. Instead the movie descends rapidly into weirdness and improbability. I lost patience with the film the night that Keitel's character shows Winslet's a cheesy movie about cults. We're asked to believe that on viewing just a few minutes of this single film, Winslet's entire faith in her religious leader is shattered. Somehow, I think it takes a lot more to break the faith of someone caught up in the clutches of a cult.

But it got even worse after that. How worse? Well, right after Keitel destroys her faith with a single film, she's apparently so distraught that she burns her clothing and he finds her naked outside of the remote house they're staying in. She kisses him and tells him she doesn't feel loved. That's not so hard to believe if we accept she'd really have a crisis of faith at that point. Keitel's character resists her and walks away...so far so good. But what apparently changes his mind is when --I'm not making this up-- she pisses herself. I don't have a clue as to what that was supposed to mean since the movie was a "serious" project and not some piece of twisted fetish erotica (maybe it emphasized how completely vulnerable she was but blech!) And that apparently does the trick, she and Keitel make the two-backed beast and let me say, it ain't dreamily erotic like Winslet's seduction of David Cross is in "the Reader"...just coarse and unpleasant. After that, it descends into even more weirdness until the deal is sealed with a wildly improbable happy ending.

The only thing I can think of when I consider this movie is "Wow, Kate Winslet really, really, REALLY wanted to avoid being typecast as a standard Hollywood star after her role in the monster-hit "Titanic" (a movie that I hated because of the terrible script)...and there's no movie too strange for Harvey Keitel.

The movie's only redeeming features is that Kate Winslet looks lovely then as she doesn now (and curvy unlike so many anorexic "super models") and does a convincing Australian accent. Oh, and the scenery in Australia where the film was shot is beautiful, but that's hardly worth subjecting yourself to this film.

I can only hope that when Kate Winslet, who I adore, recalls this film, she winces and her next project will either be a worthy "serious film" like "the Reader," a joyful romp like "the Holiday," or even better something like the gem "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

Fired Up
2009-03-01 - When Shakti is given (through the gurus touch) the energy in the body for a moment comes alive. For the uninitiated that is a awakening that can make you follow a guru. In India theses gurus have found the way to Shakti. Do not underestimated this feeling, the movement of energy is startling. Shakti is what happened to Kate Winslet character. The counterpart doesn't exist in the west.
When Harvey Keitel loses it with Kate because he is dealing with his own ignorance: he is not in touch with his own energy(soul)than all falls apart. The conclusion is the search goes on for the truth. The movie and acting captures this lost and confused time.

Good Accents. Good Nudity. Good Way To Lose Two Hours You'll Never See Again
2009-02-18 - Girl goes to India and joins a cult.
Result: family wigs out.
And then: girl is tricked home and sent to a de-programmer.
Which brings about: the two enjoy a semi-complex relationship that travels through rejection and sex and conquest.
And ultimately: ...

Wow, I almost drifted into spoiler country, didn't I?

Truthfully there isn't a lot to spoil, and my la-dee-da summary up there is my own sub-comment on the painfully linear presentation of Holy Smoke's stick figure plot. With this cast and director maybe I expected too much but what I'm here to report is that ultimately I found Holy Smoke to be flat as the featureless Outback terrain in which so much of it was shot. It did hold my attention through to the end, so that's something, but even for the purposes of a short review trying to describe what happened in the movie is a challenge. I suspect most people have heard of this film in connection to its plethora of full frontal nude scenes and in all honesty that was its major claim to fame.


Art-House Cinema Gone Horribly Wrong
2008-12-06 - One of worst films associated with director Jane Campion, actors Harvey Keitel and Kate Winslet, or anyone else. "Holy Smoke!" (1999) is self-indulgent claptrap with no laughs or sociological insight. Considering the amount of talent involved, the results are excruciatingly bad. Winslet tries, but Keitel is embarrassing to watch. El stinko!

Kate Winslett in the Buff
2008-11-23 - An Australian film that exposes Kate to the fullest. A strong performance
by Harvey Kietel. Worth seeing.