Although if you're looking for a straightforward film about deprogramming you're going to be disappointed because this is Jane Campion.

I watched it last night, and was put off after the first ten minutes by the dysfunctional family and the first glimpse of Harvey Keitel (P.J.) done up naffly in his black shirt, dyed hair and seedy moustache. I decided not to wade through such tacky nonsense. So I hit the off button.

Watching it this morning however, I decided that the family were not all that grotesquely dysfunctional. None of them are nuts, but extravagant versions of recognisable types, whose role is to represent a counterpoint to the intensity of the main Keitel-Winslet action (and pose the unspoken question as to who is totally normal anyway).

The plot might have ended reasonably successfully at the point when the young bros and shielas descend and whisk Ruth and P.J. off to the disco. By that time Ruth has been confronted by Keitel with the fact that the words of wisdom from Baba were age-old Upanishad quotes, that cult leaders can be sexual predators, and that the buzz received may be a smokescreen concealing and allowing an escape from unresolved emotional and sexual problems.

After watching the cult video on Manson, Osho, Andrew and the rest the night before, she has seen a pattern of dependency and dominance, and this freaks her out of the mirage she has been in. She throws herself at Harvey Keitel, who eventually succumbs, though this is highly culpable in his deprogrammer role.

It might still have ended up fairly successfully with Ruth back in the family bosom, enjoying the disco next day, though with the implied parallel to the initial dancing scene at the ashram asking whether the relief and love of being back in the family fold isn't just a tad illusory too and incapable of providing total fulfilment.

This is the point where P.J. should presumably bow out, and allow Ruth to chill and became emotionally grounded, but, of course, they have blown that through the initial sexual surrender, and plough in once more.

The second point where the plot-writers might have lowered the curtain is after Ruth humiliates P.J., by dressing him up as a sort of seedy elderly female slapper, and he responds by writing BE KIND on her forehead. At which point she realises that human relationships are not just about seeking one’s own pleasure and fulfilment, but about being kind and understanding about one’s own and other people’s shortcomings (maybe the basis of real emotional growth and fulfilment).

The last section, in which everything becomes totally surreal, is quite intriguing, as it seems to be implying that the deprogrammer is actually as messed up as the deprogrammee, and has his own unresolved emotional issues, screened by the mask of ruthless intellectual objectivity.

He becomes totally absorbed by Ruth’s sexuality and in a desert vision sees her as Durga, the multi-armed Mother Goddess.

So, just as Ruth was projecting her all-powerful father or male fantasy onto Baba, P.J. is now doing exactly the same with Ruth – seeing her not as a frail and limited (normal) human, but as the Great Mother. Anyone who has lived through the delusions and grandeurs of Romantic Love will probably identify with the scenario.

P.J. has to to face his fantasy and crack up in turn, so he can learn how to successfully love a real human woman, not some stereotype left over from his own previous cult involvement days.

Seeing him crumpled in the back of the pickup, still dolled up pathetically as the hairy-armed red-dressed slapper, Ruth climbs in and shows him genuine kindness, thus practically realising the lesson he has tried to teach her earlier on.

In the final section, a year later, Ruth writes to PJ from the animal sanctuary in India where she now works with her mother (her father ran off with his secretary, thus demonstrating that there is no final security in this world). She has found some contentment and some promise of a limited but grounded happiness with a new boyfriend of her own age. The latter cannot fill Harvey’s cowboy boots, but is more realistic to involve with, while H will always be loved from a distance for the ‘something’ they experienced together.

P.J. has meanwhile been sorted out by Carol, his assistant and side-kick of similarish age, who has provided him with twins, and a realistic worldly satisfaction. He is into writing his second novel and grooving along quite nicely with this, too.

He wants Ruth to know, in his responding letter to hers, that he loves her too ‘from a distance’ and also appreciated the ‘something’ they had, and which has obviously changed both their lives from the unreally ideally romantic into grounded appreciation of more limited, but realistically satisfying worldly relationships and love.

Personally I think it’s rather a splendid movie.

Obviously, it’s more of a movie of ideas rather than a straightforward account of cult conditioning and deprogramming, and should be approached as such, but I'm not sure how they could have explained the distinction in a trailer.