The Family, also known as the Santiniketan Park Association and the Great White Brotherhood, was an Australian New Age cult led by Anne Hamilton-Byrne, one of few women to ever lead a cult. Elements of this story inspired J. P. Pomare’s novel “In the Clearing,” which in turn is the basis for the new Hulu limited series “The Clearing,” co-created by Matt Cameron (“Baron”) and Elise McCredie (“Stateless”), with additional writing from Osamah Sami (“Ali’s Wedding”).
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Unfortunately, it seems in stretching this story through so many formats whatever was compelling in this story has been lost in translation. The three episodes shared with critics are muddled, unfocused, and lack any sense of world building or characterization. It’s further hampered by a banal, overly serious piano-laden score that is meant to evoke prestige, but instead lands the whole affair in the land of cliché.
The first episode, directed by Jeffrey Walker (“Young Rock”), follows the abduction of a girl named Sara (Lily LaTorre, “Run Rabbit Run”) as she walks home on a dirt road in rural Australia. Tamsin (Kate Mulvany, “Elvis”) snatched the girl with the help of 13-year-old Amy (Julia Savage, “Mr. Inbetween”) to please a woman they both call mommy, the cult leader Adrienne (Miranda Otto, “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”). Along with indoctrinating adults into her cult, Adrienne has plans to build a new generation within their belief system, raised away from the outside world.
This storyline is contrasted with that of single mother Freya (Teresa Palmer, “A Discovery of Witches”) and her son Billy (Flynn Wandin), who live a solitary life in a secluded woodland area. The news of the girl’s abduction and the site of a white van outside her property push Freya into a psychological tailspin, fearing her own child will be snatched next. Or is that what’s happening?
Walker plays with perspective and time, much like Sean Durkin’s excellent cult deprogramming film “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” which launched the career of Elizabeth Olsen. In that film Durkin shows just how deep cult programming can seep into one’s psyche through editing which leaves the audience just as unsure about what’s real and what’s memory as Olsen’s character. It’s unsettling and highly effective.
The use of this style of editing is rendered moot by the end of the first episode, when it becomes clear that Freya is actually Amy and her connection with Adrienne has not been as cleanly cut as it seemed at the start of the episode. Yet, Walker and fellow director Gracie Otto (“Seriously Red”), continue to employ this parallel editing technique for the next two episodes.
Instead of disquieting, this structure becomes frustrating and frankly rather dull. It does not lend itself to a deeper examination of Freya’s interiority, instead it obfuscates and fractures any sense of who she is and what’s going on inside her head. Which would be interesting if it felt like an intentional choice. However, the structure is employed haphazardly, without any sense of emotional revelation to the order in which the scenes unfold.
The structure also isn’t helped by Palmer’s mostly one-note performance. Her wide eyes are always fearful and distrusting, her body language tense as if she’s ready to run at any moment. She has nice chemistry with Flynn Wandin who plays her son. But as the episodes continue more characters are brought into her orbit who are mostly introduced with clunky expositional dialogue, and none of whom we ever really understand why we should be invested in their story.
Miranda Otto is chilling as the cult leader, but her screen time is limited in the episodes screened for review. As is Guy Pearce (“Mare of Easttown”), who plays Dr. Bryce Latham, one of the cult’s leaders who also runs a private hospital. Neither actor is given much to do in these first three episodes except. Otto oscillates between charming and menacing, while Pearce plays Dr. Latham as almost too calm as to register on any wavelength.
The sequences with the abducted children, many of whom have had their hair dyed blonde resembling something out of “Village of the Damned,” is brutal and will likely be triggering for anyone who has experience verbal or physical child abuse.
Freya/Amy is the eldest of Adrienne’s “daughters” and thus in charge of welcoming Sara, now renamed Asha, into their way of life. Sara pushes back against Amy’s instructions, telling her that this place is cruel and that in the outside world she has food whenever she wants and toys and love from her mother.
Here the editing could have been interesting if they’d chosen to contrast the cruelty Amy suffered at the cult compound with her approach towards her own son Billy. However, even though we see the kindness – and sometimes unintentional violence – with which she treats him, the contrast is just not there in terms of the show’s structure.
The Family were known for their use of LSD – and other controversial treatments like electroconvulsive therapy and deep sleep therapy – on prospective members. We see an allusion to this in the third episode where Amy is “cleared” of her sins through a dosing. The filmmakers attempt to make the sequence trippy with special effects, but they are mostly laughable and pull focus from the emotional weight of what is happening to the girl.
Which is essentially the core problem of “The Clearing.” It tries to incorporate too much and in doing so does very little. Perhaps the goal was to make this version of the story of The Family as boring as possible to deter further cults from rising in their ashes. Or perhaps the very serious tone is intended as a somber tribute to their victims. Either way, this show is about as bland and underwhelming as television storytelling can get. [D-]
