Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018) TV Review

A mystery from over a hundred years ago still haunts the minds of readers of Joan Lindsay’s titular novel and Peter Weir’s film adaptation of the fateful day that three adventurous girls decided to venture into the Australian bush.

Fans of either adaptation best prepare themselves for a completely new retelling of one of nature’s most extreme horrors. With an extended backstory that unpacks the catalysts leading up to the disappearances and the shocking aftermath, this new portrayal introduces us to more villains and subplots.

Time and its passing acts as a cruel agent that usurps the reality of the characters as they battle the tension between the surreal landscape and the “real” constructed world of the Victorian walls that cloister the girls of Appleyard College and its headmistress Hester Appleyard (Natalie Dormer of Game of Thrones fame). Dormer’s Appleyard is as maternal as she is manipulative, led by her vocation to indoctrinate pupils Miranda Reid (Lily Sullivan), Irma Leopold (Samara Weaving) and Marion Quade (Madeleine Madden) into becoming pure and refined ladies. Lurking under the lush exterior is her own unforgiving past that is anything but aristocratic, as she  struggles to maintain composure in the cascading world of appearances and manners.

Repression is teased out with a forbidden same-sex romance and other modernised devices, but the real intrigue lies in the inquisitive and endangering spirit of the femmes whose escape lies in each other. Knowledge, or at least an ambition more than marrying up is the most rippling undercurrent and the girls curiosity for more is a red herring that leads to speculation that maybe they do not want to be found. Racism is subtly hinged upon to tie in with feminist arcs yet these themes almost denigrate from the mystery itself as the flashbacks creep away from exposition and instead act as a mirror for our modern times.

Spatially and temporally, the series suspends itself and the sudden time jumps are as jarring as one who has spent time on the rock. They are effective in the first half of the series but become over-utilised from then on. It’s almost as if we are in the Upside Down of colonial Australia, where the colour grading and tilted camera leads us to a kaleidoscope of characters all entrenched in their own part of the mystery.

Casting has been one of the stronger points of the series, with the three leads all headstrong girls who turn their backs on their demure, dainty classmates of yesteryear. Dormer’s starpower is obvious, as she plays a commanding matriarch worthy of our respect, albeit one whose youthful looks almost place her in the same graduating class as the girls she instructs. If the previous Appleyard in the books and film was a frumpy, matronly figure who possessed no charm, then the Appleyard of today is a maternal yet stern, wealthy widower who knows of her sexuality and tries to warn other girls of the dangers of unlocking it.  Foul play still lurks in the shadows of the Australian subconscious, embodied by Westworld’s Jonny Pasvolsky as the police sergeant who acts as our advocate as we feel equally stumpted for having been wrapped in a criminal mystery that demands answers while asking pointless questions. Before long we’ll be hanging our heads in a similar fashion.

Verdict: Enjoyable for its palette, but perhaps overstays its hospitality.

Made for Foxtel with Fremantle Media

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Shahbaz Malik

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