Film

Holy Smoke

Name: Holy Smoke
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Released: 1999
Cast: Kate Winslet, Harvey Keitel, Julie Hamilton, Sophie Lee, Dan Wyllie

Drama

Jane Campion's audacious 1999 provocation pairs Kate Winslet's steely cult initiate with Harvey Keitel's swaggering deprogrammer in a remote Australian desert. It's funny, sexy, strange, and deeply uninterested in easy answers—less about cults than about power, desire, and the stories we tell ourselves. For viewers who prize originality over comfort.

TMDb rating

2.9

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy sparring two-handed battles of will between strong-minded people, where the comedy comes from pride and the drama from something sharper underneath.

Skip it if the mood swings between broad farce and raw intimacy can feel uneven, and the long desert stretch tests patience.

What it asks of you: Nearly two hours at an unhurried pace, with long stretches of talk and heat, so settle in and sit with discomfort rather than wait for speed.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Master2012

Paul Thomas Anderson's fractured portrait of a charismatic mentor and his devoted follower, exploring manipulation and belief with the same philosophical intensity and visual ambition Campion brings to her material.

But Deliberately opaque and slow-moving, with no conventional resolution. Some find it intellectually exhausting rather than rewarding.

Mulholland Drive2001

David Lynch's labyrinthine Los Angeles—obsessive, sensual, impossible to pin down. Like Holy Smoke, it trusts the audience to sit with contradiction and never quite resolve into meaning.

But Fractured narrative structure and dream logic will frustrate anyone wanting clarity. At 147 minutes, it demands patience and probably a second viewing.

Under the Skin2014

Jonathan Glazel's hypnotic science-fiction film, where Scarlett Johansson plays something unknowable. Visually stunning and philosophically slippery, it shares Campion's refusal to explain or comfort.

But Deliberately obscure, extremely slow, and deeply unsettling. Some audiences find it pretentious rather than profound.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Holy Smoke

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Stalker1979

Both filmmakers prioritize interior spiritual states over external action; both are fascinated by the moment when conviction becomes vulnerability.

Andrei Tarkovsky's meditative science-fiction odyssey about faith, desire, and the things we chase. Campion and Tarkovsky share an almost mystical commitment to visual poetry and the ineffable—both make cinema from what can't be said.

But 163 minutes of deliberate, hypnotic slowness. If you need plot or conventional drama, this will feel like punishment rather than philosophy.

The Last Temptation of Christ1988

Scorsese's heretical, visionary take on faith and doubt. Confrontational about belief in ways that match Campion's willingness to make audiences uncomfortable about spirituality.

But Deeply blasphemous and provocative. The pacing is leisurely, and three hours of theological argument isn't everyone's idea of cinema.

Liquid Sky1982

Slava Tsukerman's alien-invasion indie with hypnotic synth score and surreal gender politics. Aggressively weird and formally experimental in a way that honors Campion's uncompromising style.

But Shot on 16mm with deliberately disorienting editing, a whisper-quiet mix, and absolutely no plot machinery. Requires active, forgiving attention.

A Serious Man2009

The Coen Brothers examine faith, suffering, and the human need for answers—or at least for someone to blame. Darkly comic and ultimately devastating, with the same refusal to let anyone off easy.

But The protagonist is deeply unsympathetic and passive. The ending is bleak and offers no resolution, which some experience as nihilistic rather than profound.

Images1972

Robert Altman's fractured psychological thriller with Susannah York adrift in Ireland. Visually sophisticated, sexually charged, and genuinely destabilizing—another masterpiece about a woman's fractured inner world.

But The narrative is deliberately unreliable and confusing. Long, often quiet sequences feel glacial to modern viewers expecting momentum.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things2020

Charlie Kaufman's metafictional nightmare about a woman meeting her boyfriend's parents. Like Holy Smoke, it's obscure by design, playful about performance, and genuinely unsettling about intimacy and control.

But Aggressively weird and tonal whiplash throughout. The film seems to actively resist being enjoyed in a conventional way, which exhausts some viewers.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer2017

Yorgos Lanthimos's controlled, glacial psychodrama with Colin Farrell as a man losing everything. Campion-adjacent in its fascination with power dynamics and moral ambiguity rendered in heightened, almost operatic style.

But Relentlessly tense and bleak, with very little humor and no catharsis. The deliberate pacing and flat affect will feel punishing to some.

The Souvenir2019

Both explore how intelligent, strong-willed women can be seduced by intellectual authority and spiritual promise; both refuse to make this into victim narrative.

Honor Swinton Byrne and Joanna Hogg craft a film about a young art student consumed by a charismatic older man. It's intimate, unsettling, and formally playful—examining how we narrate our own manipulation in real time.

But Deliberately obtuse and nonlinear. The sound design is frustrating, dialogue is often inaudible, and the film has little sympathy for its protagonist's choices.

Stroszek1977

Both films have characters who are fundamentally unmappable by conventional psychology; both directors treat spiritual or psychological excess as genuinely fascinating rather than pathological.

Werner Herzog's bizarre, haunting road movie with Bruno S., following a street musician to America. Formally strange, intermittently comic, and weirdly transcendent—Herzog shares Campion's refusal to stay in genre and her fascination with obsession and belief.

But The tone is unstable and disorienting. Plot barely exists; the film is more mood and digression than story, and some find it irritating rather than visionary.