Holy Smoke! MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +1 Content: -4

TITANIC star Kate Winslett plays Ruth, an Australian who visits India on a holiday with friends and falls under the hypnotic spell of a Hindu guru. Ruths horrified mother (Julie Hamilton) brings her sari-wrapped, chosen daughter back to Sydney where Ruth is soon turned over to a de-programmer, P.J. Waters (Harvey Keitel). Unattractive, middle-aged P.J. takes a defiant Ruth to a shack in the Australian outback for a three-day session. Right away this one-on-one confrontation becomes a war of wills. Just when it looks like P.J. has earned his $10,000 fee, Ruth gains control, and he melts. Seeing a grown man allow a woman to dress him in a red velvet mini-skirted dress and red lipstick, then chase her through the desert is enough to turn your stomach. HOLY SMOKE, unbelievably presented as a dramatic love story, makes you wonder what the writer/director Jane Campion smokes. However artistic, it should suffer a quick burnout at the box office.

Every conceivable offensive element has been mixed into this mess that should be rated NC-17. Homosexual behavior includes Ruths homosexual brother kissing his partner and Ruth kissing and caressing another woman on the dance floor of a pub. Ruth walks seductively around the deprogramming shack stark naked in a prolonged scene that evolves into graphic sex between her and P.J. Unconventional sex between Ruth and P.J., as well as P.J. and Ruths shameless sister-in-law adds to the films pornographic content. Along with the sexually explicit material are 25 obscenities and a few regular profanities. Eastern mystic religious rites of transcendental meditation, women falling under the spell of a spiritual guru, drinking and smoking mind-altering drugs are all presented in a positive light. Even Ruths mother follows her daughter back to India to embrace the Hindu culture. HOLY SMOKE is an insulting, pornographic heap of voodoo.

Preview Reviewer: Mary Draughon
Distributor: Miramax Pictures, 375 Greenwich, NY, NY 10013