Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
A haunting erotic fairytale about Lucy, a young University student drawn into a mysterious hidden world of beauty and desire.
Julia Leigh's debut is visually striking with cold, precise compositions that lend it an eerie, dreamlike quality—the cinematography is genuinely exceptional in its clinical detachment. Emily Browning commits fully to a demanding, largely passive role. However, the plot is deliberately oblique to the point of narrative frustration, offering little psychological grounding for Lucy's motivations, and the ending feels abrupt and unsatisfying rather than purposefully ambiguous. While the film has a distinct tone, it borrows heavily from European art-house eroticism traditions, limiting its novelty.