Synopsis
In the early 1900s, Miranda attends a girls boarding school in Australia. One Valentine's Day, the school's typically strict headmistress treats the girls to a picnic field trip to an unusual but scenic volcanic formation called Hanging Rock. Despite rules against it, Miranda and several other girls venture off. It's not until the end of the day that the faculty realizes the girls and one of the teachers have disappeared mysteriously.
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Cast
- Rachel RobertsMrs. Appleyard
- Vivean GrayMiss Greta McCraw
- Helen MorseMlle. Dianne de Poitiers
- Kirsty ChildMiss Dora Lumley
- Tony Llewellyn-JonesTom
- Jacki WeaverMinnie
- Anne-Louise LambertMiranda St. Clare
- Karen RobsonIrma Leopold
- Jane VallisMarion Quade
- Christine SchulerEdith Horton
Recommendations
- 100
Chicago Sun-Times
A film of haunting mystery and buried sexual hysteria. - 100
Empire
A fascinating film that is by turns fascinating and mysterious. - 100
Slant Magazine
It’s the characters’ ceaseless need to fully understand, outsmart, and undermine nature’s sway that drives them into fervor and, often enough, leads them to shuffle off this mortal coil. - 100
The Dissolve
Weir builds atmosphere one detail and lingering shot at a time. The cluttered, shadowy interiors of the school contrast with the open spaces and welcoming light of Hanging Rock, but the film makes neither feel like a safe place. Every moment feels designed to be unsettling, but the film also creates a sense of inevitability, that whatever is happening can’t be avoided, and should perhaps be embraced. - 100
Variety
Visually it probably is one of the most beautiful pix ever seen, with Aussie flora and fauna and wonderful blue skies. Everything has been carefully re-created with loving exactitude. - 100
San Francisco Chronicle
One of the most hauntingly beautiful mysteries ever created on film. - 80
The New York Times
The result is a movie that is both spooky and sexy. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
An exceedingly beautiful film, PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK seems to aspire to be an existential thriller of some sort. At times the film seems to tread in BLACK NARCISSUS territory with its depiction of barely controlled sexual hysteria and its eccentric lyrical quality. It's all pretty overheated and underexplained but this arty, vague, and possibly supernatural movie lingers on in the memory.
