This really didn't do an awful lot for me. It's a miniseries set in Australia in 1900 and it revolves around a trio of young women - high school seniors, I guess, at whatever the equivalent of a ladies' boarding school is - disappearing one day during a school picnic (field trip?) to nearby "Hanging Rock."
This is the summary I had going in, and I knew it was based on an old and beloved Australian book, so I was prepared for some sort of Top of the Lake-style murder mystery. But, no. No, this wasn't that, at all. This dove hard into David Lynch-style weirdness, loaded with dream logic and hallucinations and the like. I lost the plot somewhere around the second episode, and almost bailed - but then the second episode ended with a little twist I didn't see coming at all and, sure, I stuck around.
Oh! And Natalie Dormer is here. She's the main character, the school's headmistress, and she's all kinds of fucked up. I'd like to say Natalie Dormer delivered a great performance, but really, I'm just not sure what was going on half the time. Yael Stone is here too, but only barely. Certainly don't watch this thing for her, of all reasons.
Ultimately I appreciated this, and I'm glad it got made, and I don't really feel like I wasted six hours watching it. But that's the best praise I can give it - it was weird and surreal at times, and jumped all over the place chronologically (which makes sense - gotta keep those three missing girls in the picture). I barely followed the plot, but in reading summaries of the book and earlier adaptations of it, I've learned that the plot doesn't really matter or make sense at all. So then, what are we doing here? What's the point of this story, and why is it so beloved, and why's it been adapted three or four times already? Eh. Dunno!
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