Ruth is none too eager to leave her newfound freedom, especially when confronted with the next phase of the family's plotting. They have flown in PJ (Harvey Keitel), American cult-exiter extraordinaire, to spend three full days removing all traces of Ruth's recent experiences.

And thus she finds the privacy of her own spiritual persuasions exploited. She is prohibited to exercise any authority over her own life, and this includes the ability to choose her own environs. The film is an exploration of possession, specifically the ownership of one's children, one's mind, one's body. Ruth's dependence on her faith is destroyed and briefly replaced by the presence of the man who is supposed to fix her. But this soon shifts and Ruth assumes control of an acquiescent PJ. Such an easily phased man provides an interesting extension of Keitel's all-too-familiar character of the "fix-it guy" from Pulp Fiction. Here, Ruth's power deprives him not only of his initially detached, authoritative position as cult-exiter, but also of his pants; He spends much of the film prancing about the outback in red lipstick and a matching dress, vaguely reminiscent of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert.

Such blurred gender lines are signature to Australian film making, but Campion also succeeds at entwining physical geography and spiritual enlightenment; ancient dance and modern, Western music; the traditional Indian Sari dress and the newer, German Berkenstock sandal. Clothes in this film, as anywhere, become defining labels of people, beliefs and cultures, and loss of clothing allows both Ruth and PJ to reevaluate their bodies as reflections of their minds.

Campion's premise is strong, but she offers no instruction, no play of morals, no distinction of right and wrong. Instead, her resolutions are circumstantial and comical. To her credit she has avoided the distinctions of good and evil; there are no winners at the end, and Ruth's battle is within herself. The film's first half is engaging and involved, and includes some gorgeous shots of India. Campion dares to raise certain unanswerable questions. But that is the rub and that is why the film loses momentum. There are no answers. What begins as a beautiful and stirring quest of the mind becomes a ridiculous jaunt through the country. The intrigue halts, the humor dries up, and then there is only frustration.