![]() ![]() Ultimately, its brilliant artistic direction and costumes are the only distinguishing features in this highly manufactured product, designed to satisfy a demanding audience who might find themselves momentarily absorbed in the baroque splendour of this dystopic soap bubble, before it bursts, too full of pretention and consigned to oblivion in the viewer’s mind. This film, in fact, is lacking in nerve, in muscular tone and in energy in terms of its direction, and in boldness and originality in terms of script and acting performances. Unfortunately, Paradise Hills doesn’t come close to either of these works. Waddington’s film tries to capture the mysterious, dreamy, oneiric atmosphere of the first, while borrowing the unhealthy, prison-like feel and the dark, gothic nature of its tale from the second. ![]() Though not directly referenced, Paradise Hills seems to have taken inspiration from two jewels in the crown of the fantastic film genre: Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), directed by Australia’s Peter Weir, and the Spanish work The House That Screamed (1969) by the recently deceased maestro of fantastic film, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador. Together, the three of them will try to make their escape – without any male assistance – from this iron-fisted institution. The protagonist soon makes friends with an Asian girl and an overweight white girl. This “educational” institution is a fascinating enclave, an island of light and colour (pink) where the detainees must dress in white and toe the line dictated by the strict and despotic principal (Ukrainian-born star Milla Jovovich). The screenplay, written by the director alongside Nacho Vigalondo ( Colossal ) and Brian DeLeeuw, introduces us to Uma (played by New York’s Emma Roberts), a girl who’s interned in a facility of sorts where she’ll be properly trained to be a subservient wife, perfectly aligned with the musty canons of machismo. It’s an impeccably crafted film - owing to the full commitment of the various technical/artistic teams to producing a mind-blowing visual spectacle – and from the very first (whirlwind) scene, the audience expects the aesthetic wealth unfolding before their eyes to go on forever and – understandably - for this visual richness to be accompanied by a plot that hits the mark. The patients are drugged into submission after consuming dainty little meals, and they watch videos while strapped to a carousel horse, which suggests a Disney-princess version of the chair where Malcolm McDowell’s Alex is restrained in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.Paradise Hills certainly has a lot of tricks up its sleeve to help reach its goal… But whether it succeeds in doing so is a whole other story. The facility’s design is intriguingly gaudy, awash in mirrors, flowing curtains, nature paintings, and plants draped over every surface. Paradise Hills is very bluntly about how society conditions women into silence and docile conformity, and that bluntness fits the heightened atmosphere of this odd, picturesque island with a sordid underbelly. Chloe’s (Danielle MacDonald) stay is supposed to make her thin, Yu’s (Awkwafina) is supposed to quell her panic attacks, and Amarna’s (Eiza González), like Uma’s, is meant to make her happy with a man she has no interest in. ![]() When her initial escape attempts are thwarted, she resigns herself to the island’s banal rituals alongside the other twentysomething “problem women,” putting on makeup or therapeutically speaking to a mirror. Uma’s (Emma Roberts) internment on the island is meant to curb her refusal to marry a rich suitor because another, poorer man (he’s a “lower,” where Uma is an “upper”) has captured her heart. Male attendants observe their every move, sternly calling the women “mademoiselle,” as in “mademoiselle, please finish your meal.” Waddington’s sci-fi fantasy realizes a beautiful world of strange, intricate designs and candy colors, but it never finds a cohesive story wrapper for its themes. Alice Waddington’s feature-length debut, Paradise Hills, centers around an island retreat where uncooperative women are sent in order to be “fixed.” At this brainwashing facility, which suggests a combination of a psych ward and rehab clinic, the patients are given mandatory makeovers (all of them must wear frilly white dresses) and taught how to behave by the enigmatic Duchess (Milla Jovovich). ![]()
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