Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018) User Reviews

More is less.

[cairnst-94911 · 5/10 · 25 April 2021]

It's unlikely that approximately six hours of TV are required to make a spin-off from a source-novel of less-than two-hundred pages. 'Picnic at Hanging Rock', like Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', draws power from what's left unsaid. Whereas Joan Lindsay, in the original book, has the imagination to step-inside an earlier time-period, this adaptation simply superimposes twenty-first century mores onto a world where they don't belong. Nearly everyone has become 'pan-sexual'; and it's highly unlikely that a young aboriginal woman would have attended a posh girls' school in Australia c.1900 (no matter how politically correct this might be). The episodes are often terribly over-directed. Natalie Dormer seemed miscast as 'Mrs Appleyard'. 'Miranda', 'Irma' and 'Marion' are played by exquisitely beautiful actresses, but the characters come across as annoying and shallow. Lola Bessis really shines in an expanded characterization of 'Mademoiselle'.

In the 1967 book, the missing girls are kept in the background, becoming more-of an idea or enigmatic symbol. A large part of the novel consists of the author - a woman - writing about women being viewed by men (Michael, a young, upper-class Englishman, and his working-class Aussie friend, Albert). Bringing the senior-boarders right into the foreground distorts the story, producing diminishing returns. And 'Mrs Appleyard' has been disastrously rewritten. More is definitely less in this case.

confused beauty

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 23 July 2018]

It's the turn of the century Australia. Mrs Hester Appleyard (Natalie Dormer) purchases a remote mansion turning it into a girls' school. Miranda Reid (Lily Sullivan) is a self-possessed student expected to learn refinement. She stabs a handsy soldier with a pitchfork. It's St. Valentine's Day 1900. The girls are off to picnic at Hanging Rock. As most nap, Miranda leads Irma Leopold, Marion Quade, and Edith Horton up the Rock. The girls and their teacher Miss McCraw go missing. Only Edith returns in a shocked state.

The 1975 film was a critical hit and is a real sign post in Australian cinema. It's a psycho-sexual drama in hormonal madness. The lack of a revelation only added to its unique dreamlike quality. This TV series does have some of that. The teen sexual drama is in full bloom. Dormer, Sullivan, and the girls are all great. The revelation is little Inez Currõ who delivers a dark innocent performance and fully owns her episode as the protagonist. One of the reasons why the film's confused nature works is that it made it into a dream. The TV series tries to have it both ways by diving into the characters' individual stories while keeping some of the dreamlike qualities. It doesn't work as well and revealing an ending may be its major flaw. It's confused without the enjoyment of the dream. It's analyzing the dream without making sense of it. This material may not be able to translate into something longer than a movie.

Meh. See the wonderful original movie

[flurbinflarbin · 5/10 · 20 January 2020]

See Peter Weir's masterpiece or read the book! They're magical, haunting and classic. This on the other hand, isn't. Did filmmakers really forget how to make that dreamy look? It looks too crisp and clean for a dreamy, surreal tale of mystery...just sayin'. I love Dormer but I don't think she fit the character. I loved the costumes!

could not watch...

[smoke0 · 25 May 2018]

...not because the series was bad, although what I did see was incredibly bad, but because I could not get past the 1990's New Age soundtrack. Not only did it sound more like dinner music played in an desperately upscale restaurant, it had nothing whatsoever to do with the story and was intrusive enough to take me right out of the show and start wondering what Kitaro is doing these days.

Congratulations!

[natassja-lindrea · 7/10 · 15 May 2018]

Big congratulations to all involved in the making of Picnic at Hanging Rock. Thoroughly enjoyed watching the season and was super impressed with the Production Design, beautiful work Josephine Ford. Loved the edgy visual representation created by Larysa Kondracki and a big shout out to Lily Sullivan, Samara Weaving and Madeleine Madden was really impressed with the performance. Oh, and of course Lola Bessis, beautiful work!

An Opportunity Missed

[martimusross · 6/10 · 12 August 2018]

Some excellent acting, fabulous camera work, great set scenes that capture the claustrophobic atmosphere of the school. The things that let this don't, we just don't like anybody and really don't care. The graphics and music jar with the action and prove to be a distraction often played on instruments not in keeping with the period. The settings are too crisp and too clean and the director is fixated with symmetry, this effect creates a feeling of style over substance. The inner emotional conflicts of the characters rarely surface and so we the viewer are detached. Overall I enjoyed it but was just not memorable.

Really Not As Bad As It Looks!

[Dan1863Sickles · 7/10 · 20 August 2020]

Oh, I know what people are saying. This new Amazon mini-series is a nightmare, a travesty, a clumsy, heavy-handed, over-the-top, deliberate dumbing down of a beloved Australian classic. And you know what? They're right. Well, partly right. Right for quite a few scenes. But that's not the whole story.

This six episode series starts on exactly the wrong note. Natalie Dormer, dressed in black, cackling it up like the Wicked Witch of the West, buys a deserted mansion and makes a sacred vow to Satan to build the worst girl's school ever!

At this point I very nearly took the DVD's back to the library.

The writing, directing, and the music are all poor, especially in the first couple of episodes. What saves the series and even makes it a triumph are the soaring, sensational performances of the young, very talented Australian cast.

Lily Sullivan as Miranda, the fearless, rugged, outdoor girl, the noble and unselfish leader. Lily Sullivan makes Miranda so tough, yet so caring, almost Christ like, yet very down to earth. She has such magnetism, such decency, such strength!

Samara Weaving as Irma, the glamorous, sophisticated and sexually adventurous bad girl. Samara Weaving makes Irma so much more than just a "salop!" She shows how badly this seemingly confident girl wants to be accepted and included, how much she wants Miranda's respect. Ironically, she's the one you really feel sorry for at the end, even though she's the "luckiest" of all the girls!

Maddie Madelyn as Marion, the serious scholar of the group. You can see that political correctness was at work here, casting an indigenous girl to play a character that was just as white as all the other girls in the original book. Yet Maddie makes Marion so brave and loyal and effortlessly devoted to Miranda.

Inez Curro as Sara, the littlest girl at school, the castoff orphan who idolizes Miranda. What blows you away is how this nine year old actress (in her first role ever) takes the simple part of the cute mascot and gives her all kinds of grown up guts and strength, her face showing grit and defiance in almost every scene! (Except when she's horseback riding with Miranda.)

So you have these three young actresses who have instant, natural, Three Musketeers type chemistry, and they can transcend all the silliness of the script and find the deeper, richer, almost mystical connection between the three girls. The three of them can be cute and sexy in one scene, sweet and forlorn in the next, and tragic and defiant in the next, and always with the sense that it's all for one and one for all!

The fascinating thing is that the the "modern" elements that get wedged into the script (feminist preaching, flirty lesbian looks, and of course the odd sex toy) don't really ruin the timeless mystery of the story. That's because the cast are absolutely amazing and totally believe in the journey the girls are taking. By the very end of the story, even Natalie Dormer is able to discover the core of Mrs. Appleyard's anguish and give her a very graceful exit.

So my review is seven stars -- stick with this one, it's not as bad as it looks!

What would Joan have said?!

[ozjosh03 · 4/10 · 20 June 2018]

There's so much that's wrong with this new version of the Australian classic that it's hard to know where to start. First there's the direction - tricksy, flashy and sprinkled with "creative" flourishes more evocative of 80s music videos than Australia in 1900. It's uneven from episode to episode, unhelpful in establishing the kind of eerie, dreamy atmosphere that the story demands, and frequently just yanks us out of the period and out of the story. The performances are jarringly uneven too, ranging from naturalistic (though, unfortunately, in an anachronistic contemporary style) to fruity amateur-theatrical emoting, with highly questionable accents. The location for the girl's school is ludicrously lavish, a sprawling mansion replete with marble columns and ornate fixtures - an unlikely girl's school anywhere in Australia at any time, but utterly nonsensical in a remote rural area in 1900. And then there's the depiction of the bush and hanging rock itself - over-saturated hues that make everything seem green and lush, and even a shimmering lake. It looks more English than Australian, and absolutely nothing like the dry Macedon Ranges in which the story is set. The same lack of care extends to the dialogue and the depiction of social conventions of the time, with almost every exchange between "the gentry" and the lower orders being hilariously unlikely. If you watch this Picnic with the expectation of something eerie and other-worldly, you may well find it... and it's most likely the sound of poor Joan Lindsay turning in her grave.

It's not all bad

[HypnoticPoison7 · 8/10 · 9 June 2018]

My only real qualms with this were the ending (which I can blame the original author for, rather than the series writers), the weird decision to make many of the characters bisexual, and the excessive dreamy scenes others mentioned with birds or blurry imagery meant to take up extra time. Aboriginal descendants were in the film (though that may not be historically accurate) and brought up frequently enough in regards to Hanging Rock that I thought they did a decent enough job to avoid complaints about that.

Other than that, without having seen the original version or reading the novel, I can say that this is a show worth watching, and I didn't regret it. I really liked nearly all of the female central characters, and thought they did superb acting jobs. I also thought the character development was pretty good, although it could have been a little better in regards to Sara, whose character was one of the best.

I really liked the theme of the show in regards to true freedom, and the idea that some birds just weren't meant to be caged.

On a side note, it's sad but interesting that Amazon won't allow anyone to review the show on their website as of 6/9/2018 due to negative reviews. What a shame.

Very...Artsy, I Guess.

[rhyllannffiain · 6/10 · 17 February 2020]

It annoys me when there is a remake and people merely want the same exact movie/series but with new actors. That's...that's not exactly creative. Anyone can simply take the original and morph new faces onto the film. That's lazy and originals have been done: I get excited about cover songs and do NOT expect them to sound identical; again: Where is the fun in THAT?

I wouldn't say it is gripping, I am shelving this one for a later date when I am in the mood for something like this. It's not unwatchable, it's simply designed for entertainment and artsy modern flash.

It is also great fun to see Yael Stone, giving us her best Igoresque performance.

The picnic is all but forgotten in this misguided project

[derekjager · 2/10 · 22 May 2018]

People may not be aware that the novel PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK is very short, just over 200 pages. It works ideally as a 2-hour film but to stretch it out into 6-hours results in a heavily padded and downright dull miniseries. In the first hour, the girls disappear and the filmmakers bungle this key scene. There's no set- up, no sense of dread, so the main focus of the entire project falls flat. And that's in the first hour! For the rest of the miniseries, the characters involved seem more concerned about the girl's school than Hanging Rock. We see the local community searching for the girls, but at the same time, backstories of pretty much every character are introduced. Episodes 3 and 4 add zero to the narrative and you can see the filmmakers are desperate to keep us engaged with some poorly staged jump scares: an animal nailed to the wall! A pile of maggots at one character's feet! But why? No explanation. This is a much harsher PICNIC than Peter Weir's classic film of 1975. At times, the miniseries comes across as LA RESIDENCIA (THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED), the 1970 shocker with Lili Palmer who stars as the headmistress of a nineteenth-century French boarding school for girls. Some girls are whipped, others are slapped...but it isn't until the 5th and 6th episodes that we're reminded girls went missing. Whatever happened to them? Parents come and remove their children from the school and there are more flashbacks and backstories. The women talk about being "free" but that's never explained either. The girls who vanish "take a vow"...to what end? Stretched to the breaking point to six hours, the miniseries tries to answer questions that are never asked and, worst of all, forgets that Hanging Rock is the center of the story, not the school house.

Disregard bad reviews

[ortegmia · 10/10 · 16 June 2018]

So glad I decided to watch this. Intriguing, wonderful character development, like peeling back layers of an onion only to find more layers. The cinematography adds to the mystique that surrounds the plot as well as as. The camera angles, distorted pull backs enhance the strange feelings we get when we ask the question of ourselves, do we truly know someone or understand a situation, or is this all a dream?

This movie & novel are metaphors IMO!

[Loveunderlaw · 7/10 · 26 June 2018]

Since much of the World is now under control of the Abrahamics,(even the ancient Middle East & Mesopotamia were all Pagan at one point in time, sadly very few in the Middle East are Pagan now)many of us have lost our way & connections to ancient pre-Abrahamic forces & deities.

IMO the whole moral of the story is "avoid forces you don't comprehend or lack respect for, they are of an ancient & very powerful nature rooted in ancient traditions.

IMO this novel\movie must be inspired by the real events of Black Mountain. There are many places in the World that will make you a missing 411 case.

The ancient beings that inhabit that sacred land will get offended by most people nowadays, because to these beings, many of us have disrespected & dishonored them.

As a LHP Pagan, I always show them honor & respect, in many cases I'll make an offering before I venture into their lands. I've never had a problem either, if you don't know the score, stay out of these ancient holy sites.

Black Mountain information is a good read & mostly accurate. Black Mountain National Park(Kalkajaka). I see this movie in a metaphorical sense, it's a warning of sorts to "modern" man. "Don't trifle in things you don't understand".

Why did they bother?

[happy_hangman · 3/10 · 27 May 2018]

Peter Weir's adaptation of Joan Lindsay's novel worked superbly because of its contradictions and subtlety - genteel young society ladies in a finishing school on the untamed borders of the Australian Bush, guileless and innocent, their sexuality and sexualisation perceived variously through the contrasting filters of their bitter, repressed Headmistress and the barely co-ordinated adolescent infatuation of two young male onlookers. Nothing is resolved at the end of the tale, the cause of the girls disappearance is not explained, and though though atmosphere and symbolism hint at a possible supernatural causality , details are ambiguously rendered - the explanation may be mundane - but we will never know. Insinuation and suggestion create one of the most haunting mysteries in cinema precisely because of the lack of detail.

Given the unique appeal of the original novel and movie, one has to ask why Amazon bothered to adapt the story in such an unsubtle, bastardised form. the guileless girls are now worldly little madams, their sexuality more explicitly rendered, and everyone HAS to have a secret past.

Rachel Roberts was so effective as the monstrous Headmistress precisely because the reasons for her cruelty and bitterness were not explored: they are an incidental detail in a much larger drama. Here Natalie Dormer - a fine actress who deserves better - has hidden motives and a shady past which I fear will become a driving force in the narrative. And, of course, in keeping with the sledge-hammer subtlety of the show, she too is over-sexualised. Similarly Miranda, the 'Botticelli Angel' in the original is a cypher - all things to all people, and an idealised object of inexplicable fascination to all. Here the writers lazy spoon-feeding of salacious detail to keep audiences interested (because clearly we won't stay watching otherwise) shas her as a tomboy and a troublemaker, running off into the woods and pi***ing in a bowl to tick-off her prissy Bible Studies teacher, and the subject of an attempted rape...all within the first half hour.

I've heard arguments that these major conceptual changes are intended to give the key female characters emotional and psychological depth. Really? Then why is their interpretation so firmly hooked on their sexual representation? Lazy and cynical.

Unsubtle. Obvious. A shoddy and cynical appropriation of a classic story by people who clearly did not understand what made that story so enduring and effective.

That said, it is beautifully shot. Though the cinematography lacks the ethereal quality of the '70s movie, it all looks quite splendid. Pity about everything else.

Hard to Follow, Muddled Screen Play

[asclepias45 · 5 June 2018]

It was a real struggle to finish this series. I'd seen portions of the 1970's movie and had high expectations for an updated series.

The acting and filming locations were good. The sceeen play left a lot to desire. There were frequent flashbacks for most of the characters. Most flashback scenes were hard to tie to the main plot and so frequent, it was hard to differentiate which scene was a flashback or a scene in the current time period. The flashbacks seemed to be an attempt at injecting supernatural aspects into the plot, but I think this failed.

The ending was anticlimactic and left a lot of unanswered questions.

Nearly got it, but flawed in the end

[cam-23266 · 7/10 · 22 July 2018]

It wasn't until the third episode that I started to enjoy it, and I was close to calling it quits during the second, but something kept me hanging on. The intrigue kept building in the last three episodes and the at times 'over experimentalisation' in the first two episodes on the cinematography and story telling became more derivative which in turn actually started to build the suspense.

I have seen a few times the original Peter Weir film, and whilst at times the mini-series tries to replicate the mood and timbre of the film, for the most part it does its own thing, and credit to the production crew for doing so.

At times, it drags so very slow, whilst at others it moves along at an appropriate pace. And herein lies the biggest problem with the production, and that is inconsistency. The cinematography at times is brilliant, whilst at other times too experimental and trying too hard to be quirky. The music at times is haunting, minimalist and other-wordly, then it overpowers completely with modern industrial loops and phrases which simply don't fit. Sometimes the storytelling is exquisite in its timing, dialog and intrigue, whilst just around the corner it becomes vague, confusing and amateur.

I felt the jumping around on the timeline was a little 'over done', and the story could very well have been told in a slightly more 'linear' fashion, whilst still maintaining the tension and intrigue.

Far too much overlap and duplication in the first two hours also, whilst in the last two hours a number of interesting sub-plots that emerge are simply glossed over. I thought the extension of the plotline from the book and movie was generally well done and early in the last episode, one felt that perhaps it could be extended with a second series. But alas it does all wrap up in the last ten minutes rather abruptly (and of course with more overlap and duplication from the first hour)

It's a well cast and beautifully produced mini-series. Natalie Dormer is a class-above and her effort on this holds the series together powerfully. A truly wonderful actor - that without her presence on this mini-series, it may have fallen very flat.

Overall, it felt like there were too many 'cooks in the kitchen' when it came to producing this. Often less is more, especially in film making, and this series could've done with less - one less hour, less experimentation with the camera, less timejumps, less duplication, less overpowering industrial music loops and less random symbolisms.

They nearly nailed this one, but not quite - a missed opportunity to make a masterpiece.

Too slow

[alvinpiecrust-39909 · 6/10 · 25 August 2018]

It was well acted, scenery was amazing, but the whole series should've been three episodes or less. Too much filler. Too much rehashing. Also a major blooper, The term Scarper was used in one episode, but as it was the turn of the century, and the battle of Scapa flow didnt happen until the first world war. That particular rhyming slang term wasn't used at that time.

Thrilling but plot holes unplugged

[sergelamarche · 7/10 · 4 April 2021]

Beautiful and gripping fast. Anything was possible in Australia with a fresh start. And anyone could be anyone else. Some dream sequences were hard to differentiate with the insane sequences. Toward the end, Sara was escaping and then was found dead. Seems like a major plot hole. Would have given better rating otherwise. Most bad reviews are about the bad taste it gives to some because it is all girls in charge and not angelic ones.

wanted to love this, wound up loathing it

[palewook2006 · 2/10 · 13 May 2018]

See the 1975 film or read the book instead. The 2018 miniseries misses every opportunity to make something memorable or even mediocre. The 2018 miniseries ends up being a massive fail. Blame it entirely on the 3 directors. A convoluted mess that fails to grasp the source material. The miniseries borders on pretentious and fails to deliver any type of atmospheric thriller/horror you are expecting. This miniseries is ultimately - lifeless.

Sucked me in

[hannah-underwood1 · 10/10 · 2 June 2018]

Really enjoyed this mini tv series. It is one of those series that left me wondering what's going to happen next and I had to keep watching!! Watched the whole mini series in one day because of this.. Natalie's performance was spectacular. Loving that it was filmed in aus also. Definitely recommend watching

Great Mini Series - Awful Ending Execution

[Noirfolie · 7/10 · 27 February 2019]

I will admittedly say that I enjoyed this series extremely. I felt drawn to the characters. I think the acting was incredible, aside from the detective, and I think the cinematography is amazing as well. Beautifully captured scenes. However, I am heart broken that the ending wasn't executed better.

The audience receives absolutely no resolution, no answers, no explanations, not even on Sara. The girls are never found and their pact is never explained. Some areas of rock looked too lush for Australia. I wish the ending was resolved, it felt like a lazy way to what could've been a 10 star series.

I'm rating seven stars because the show had me hooked entirely throughout and I watched it all in one night. It was only the ending that docked those three stars for me.

Stop.

[KittieC · 1/10 · 15 May 2018]

This series extends both before and after where the book, and original film, goes. That's an interesting premise, but the execution is so ham-fisted that it starts to feel like a high-school production. The series makes no bones not being a remake of the film, but it does attempt to recreate the mystical atmosphere of the original. But the fuzzy focus and arty montages are a poor facsimile of the originals. The series gets more explicit with the burgeoning sexuality theme than the film, throwing in some same-sex references and what appears to be a home-made sex toy for affect. Extended fever-dream type sequences are so bad they're hard to watch. And the acting, particularly from Yael Stone and some of the girls is (unintentionally, sadly) hilarious. The story itself has merit, and I can see how the script seemed worth the effort. But the translation fails on almost every level. Natalie Dormer is acting her heart out as the headmistress with mysterious and salty past, but she's not enough to bring heart, or sense, to the show. Everyone else is chewing the scenery and looking like they wish it was over. I'm a fan of the book and the film and was very eager to be a fan of this show but it lacks any kind of subtlety - it reaches the red-line of high camp but without the irony or humour to make it 'good bad'. I'm so disappointed, mostly because in future years when people mention Picnic at Hanging Rock it's possible this wreck of an effort will be what comes to mind instead of Peter Weir's delicate and deft film.

'Picnic At Hanging Rock' is a triumph for Australian television

[cameron-farnham-127-842311 · 10/10 · 9 May 2018]

Based on Joan Lindsay's 1967 novel and adapted into Peter Weir's masterpiece of cinema in 1975, this 2018 television adaptation of 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' is certainly not trying to replicate Weir's film because it is it's own thing and that is what makes it so special. It's rich in colour, dark, twisted, complex and inviting. It opens up the things left unopened in Lindsay's novel, the things found only when read between the lines. It provides a new perspective on an already well-known story which makes this adaptation so engaging and refreshing and gets better every episode! The performances are exceptional, the direction is sublime, the writing is incredibly witty and the cinematography is beautiful, as it is haunting and disorientating, which only adds to the uncertainty of the overarching mystery.

In an age where the Australian screen industry is struggling to stay alive, Foxtel's 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' stands as proof of the talent we have in Australia and the rich stories we have and should be telling worldwide. 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' is certainly not a remake of Weir's 1975 classic, but rather, a look at Lindsay's classic story from a new perspective, for a new audience. 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' is nothing but a triumph for Australian television. Bravo!

Insult to the original.

[kellykevin-36249 · 2/10 · 21 June 2018]

After hearing all the hype about the series made from the novel, I have to say I have been left feeling ripped off & very very disappointed. After growing up watching & loving the original film of the same title & the incredibly haunting music score that went with it, I am lost for words at how this remake could go so wrong. The acting is terrible & the psychedelic filming of some of the scenes & the 'music' if you can call it that, is a joke. I thought seeing as there are 6 episodes that it would at least give some background of all the inhabitants at the school & why they are there leading up to the finale where the girls go missing but nope, afraid not.. I struggled to get through even the first episode, I cannot imagine how I will tolerate the next 5. I found it lacking, boring & trying way to hard to be something it isn't & compared to the original film will not bother watching more than a few episodes & will instead go back & enjoy the mystery & haunting original film. The costumes, scenes & landscape are so beautiful but everything else is a total let down.

At once showy and dull

[o_fachtna · 2/10 · 24 March 2019]

This is a padded and showy, even pretentious, version of the tale, a far cry from the classic novel or haunting 70s film. The writing fills in details that were merely hinted at in the book, but the murder backstory, bisexuality and sex-toy subplots serve merely to dispel the air of mystery with an excess of information, not to mention blowing away the novel's subject-matter of suppressed emotion. The casting is spectacularly bad, with headmistress Mrs. Appleyard far too young, while the senior girls, who should be turning 18, are portrayed by actresses in their mid 20s. Miranda and Irma should clearly have been playing each other, while the posh British roles are taken by Australians who sound more ill than English. Although better than the casting and direction, the script is not great either, with gratingly anachronistic references to "night terrors" and the big bang theory, first laid out in the 1920s. The attention-seeking synth soundtrack is overused and intrusive, and there is barely a shot that is both static and horizontal, making the whole more like a quick-cut trailer or pop video than a drama series. Sadly, not nearly enough is made of the spectacular Australian landscape, which should have been the real star. It could still be edited down, minus the music, to a half-decent TV movie, although some of the actors might have to be re-dubbed.