Directed by Alicia Waddington
Written by Alicia Waddington, Brian DeLeeuw, and Nacho Vigalondo
Starring Emma Roberts, Milla Jovovich, Eiza González, Awkwafina and Danielle McDonald
Rating: TV-14
Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes

by Audrey Callerstrom

Evil vines that wrap around your body and suck your life, turning white flowers a black-red. Pods that are made to look like canopy beds, glowing under a neon-pink hue. A carousel horse that lifts you to the ceiling. Hologram lockets. A bride’s beaded headpiece that can move to cover her face, looking like if Hannibal Lecter shopped at Francesca’s. All of these vivid costumes, beautiful art direction, and a candy-color palette of pinks, purples, and greens almost save Paradise Hills, a dream-like tale about a rehab center for non-conforming girls.

Paradise Hills is about Paradise, the name of the center that Uma (Emma Roberts) wakes up in one day, which is run by The Duchess (Milla Jovovich). After a failed attempt to escape, she befriends popstar Amarna (Baby Driver’s Eiza González), Yu (Awkwafina), and Chloe (Patti Cake$’ Danielle McDonald). The girls in Paradise do yoga, get extreme makeovers and consume modest meals of flowers and a special “milk.” Uma was sent there by her mother for refusing to marry a man who would help her family into a higher class (Paradise is set in a dystopian future where there are “Uppers” and “Lowers”). The script doesn’t provide Uma with any more backstory than a Disney princess. The backstory for the other girls is minimal, although Awkwafina does well with the small part of Yu, a young woman whose anxiety embarrasses her family. The movie attempts a lesbian attraction between Amarna and Uma, but it’s so muted that it just becomes confusing.

While things like flashbacks are typically considered “cheats,” these are things that would really help Paradise Hills. What is Uma’s relationship like with her mother, who sent her to Paradise? What does this world of “Uppers” and “Lowers” actually look like? Is it more like The Hunger Games or just, well, today? What else makes these girls considered rebellious aside from their one-sentence backstories? The gaps in the script and character development are the film’s second-biggest flaw. Its first was casting Milla Jovovich. Her vocal inflection is so flat that every line read is awkwardly funny. It’s a role that demands overacting to really sell it, much like Elizabeth Banks in The Hunger Games, and Jovovich is not up to the task.

Paradise Hills could possibly sneak its way into an Oscar nomination for its costumes or art direction, despite being a film that is otherwise not on the Academy’s radar (weirder things have happened). White, plastic corsets look like they’re made of ivory; a metal hummingbird brooch is actually a small map; the men who police Paradise wear white suits with jagged armor. The film becomes more engaging during its final act, when we find out how Paradise is run and how the women are eventually “cured.” But there are horrors here that the movie fails to explore deeper. Without that context, Paradise Hills looks and acts more like a music video (a Taylor Swift* one, perhaps?) than a feature-length film.

*I like Taylor Swift and seeing her live is a spiritual experience.

Paradise Hills plays at the Philadelphia Film Festival today and tomorrow, in theaters October 25th and will be available on demand November 1.