Up in smoke.

Director Jane Campion's latest offering--a mix of cults, Kate, and Keitel--is as murky as it is quirky

Holy Smoke * Written by Jane and Anna Campion * Directed by Jane Campion * Starring Kate Winslet, Harvey Keitel, Paul Goddard, and Pam Grier * Miramax

Someone needs to talk to Jane Campion. Someone needs to sit her down, look her in the eye, and say, "Girlfriend, what is this thing you have for Harvey Keitel?"

Holy Smoke, her new indulgence and a fair approximation of our response to it, kicks off with a very provocative premise but quickly deteriorates into Jane's Thing for Harvey. Not that we mind Harvey Keitel. He's fine impersonating corrupt cops who shoot up heroin from toilet seats. But Campion, who directed Keitel to rediscovered fame in The Piano, seems bent on transforming the actor from a Scorsese-land scumbag into a newfangled romantic foil.

Kate Winslet, for her part, seems bent on getting as far away as she can from any country where Celine Dion can be heard singing insipid love themes over cafe radio speakers. Having recently fled the English bourgeoisie for Morocco in Hideous Kinky, she now turns up in India, where she has found sanctuary from the Australian bourgeoisie in the lair of a Delhi guru.

The suburban family her character, Ruth, escapes from is both likably and tediously provincial: They attend Wild West theme parties together (where Winslet bestows sapphic smooches on the local gals) and wear T-shirts that encapsulate their universe (Playboy for dad, dogs for mum, guns for son-in-law).

The possible exception is Ruth's gay brother, Tim (Paul Goddard), who is such a passive character that he appears to be defined solely by his boyfriend (George Mangos). One can't help but be disappointed that Tim is the least vocal presence when the family members unite to rescue their beloved Ruth from this Indian cult. At the very least he offers the solution in the form of an American cult specialist named P.J. Waters (Keitel), who, after the family tricks her into returning to Australia, spirits the rebellious Ruth to an isolated shack for an intensive three-day deprogramming.

And so the film begins to go up in not-so-holy smoke. Usually we would be prone to root for the family's cause: Cults are creepy and manipulative, and we don't like them. But Ruth seems such a refreshing world apart from her parents, and Winslet projects such keen intelligence, that we expect something much more. She puts us in the mildly perverse position of wanting her to stand up for the integrity of her choice, however ill-advised it may seem.

That she does, for about three minutes. But it is not long before a confused Ruth is hopping into the sack with P.J. and letting go of her vaunted spirituality. All she really needed was a good lay. Their intercourse, as it turns out, is only the foreplay for a tensiouless and sloppily conceived mind fuck in which Ruth deprograms P.J. of his cocksure masculinity.

At least I think that's what this mess is about. Campion and her sister and cowriter, Anna, send mixed messages flying all over the place. Is Ruth any loftier than her Barbie-doll sister-in-law, Yvonne, who services P.J. at the drop of a hat? Why does P.J.'s liberated wife (Pam Grier) dress like a hooker? How are we to respond to P.J.'s claims to have triumphed over the homosexual advances of a guru?

Someone needs to sit that guru down and say, "Girlfriend, what is this thing you have for Harvey Keitel?"

Stuart is film critic and senior film writer at Newsday.