Latest news with #seance
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Playing Gracie Darling review – derivative occult mystery series fails to cast a spell
The title of Miranda Nation's new mystery series, Playing Gracie Darling, reminded me of Donald Crombie's 1986 adaptation of Playing Beatie Bow – another Australian production that links a young woman's name with a children's game that defies the seemingly immutable laws of the universe. Where Beatie Bow was transported from the past to modern Sydney via a chant, 'playing Gracie Darling' involves youngsters communicating with the spirit world, where Darling may have been taken after a seance performed in a creaky old shack went terribly wrong. Because of course it does! It's a seance. In a shack. Just once I'd love to see a 'talk to the dead' scene involving Ouija boards and the like go swimmingly well, a bunch of spirit-communicators leaving the event with ear-to-ear smiles and newfound joie de vivre. But of course, the seance in this reasonably well-staged but very codified and derivative series involves the Ouija board catching on fire and the titular girl (Kristina Bogic) spitting out demonic-sounding dialogue, before disappearing from the face of the Earth in 1997. Jumping many years ahead, we follow Gracie's former bestie Joni (Morgana O'Reilly), who attended the seance and is now a child psychologist. In the first episode (this review encompasses the first three of six – all that was made available to the media) Joni receives a phone call, informing her that another girl has gone missing from that very same shack, where a bunch of kids were playing Gracie Darling. Ah yes, the past comes back to haunt! This moment establishes the show's very genre-ified dialogue, via lines such as 'It's happening again'. Similarly tired-sounding language is sprinkled by the writers (Nation and Anya Beyersdorf) throughout the series and delivered by the poker-faced cast. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Occult activities becoming a form of adolescent recreation thematically aligns this show with Danny and Michael Philippou's excellent horror film Talk To Me, in which teenagers pass around an embalmed severed hand and channel a cranky spirit. But the Philippou brothers did something interesting by associating occult practices with other forms of recreational risk-taking, implying that consulting spirits and taking hits from a bong are different forms of the same ancient desire: to transcend the realm of the ordinary (which is exactly what I told my mother when she caught me smoking pot as a teenager). In Playing Gracie Darling, the occult element just feels cribbed from a cobweb-covered playbook. Likewise for the correlation between a core mystery and the troubled past of the protagonist, who, in order to fix a contemporary problem, must address something unresolved inside themselves – an oldie but a goodie. Another key player is local cop Jay (Rudi Dharmalingam, from the ABC's sublime drama Wakefield), who was also part of that seance – because small town, because narratively convenient. The supporting cast also includes Dame Harriet Walter as Joni's mum, Pattie, and Celia Pacquola as Ruth Darling, whose daughter Frankie is the latest person to disappear. Another very familiar element in this show concerns a situation brewing in the background that affects the local community, which serves as a scaffold for the main plot. Recently, in Last Days of the Space Age, there was an ongoing workers dispute at a power plant, and in The Family Next Door, a controversial real estate property development. Here, it's some recently constructed wind turbines which are disrupting the flight paths of birds and – some citizens believe – triggering health issues in the local community. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Atmospherically, Playing Gracie Darling is directed assuredly by Jonathan Brough (whose recent work includes Bay of Fires, Rosehaven and The End). And it is quite well acted, with a particularly strong, grounding lead performance from Morgana O'Reilly, who had a small but memorable role as a hotel employee in The White Lotus season three. But the writing in this series comes across as very self-conscious and overall the show feels fusty and antiquated. Playing Gracie Darling is on Paramount+ now.
The Guardian
13-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Playing Gracie Darling review – derivative occult mystery series fails to cast a spell
The title of Miranda Nation's new mystery series, Playing Gracie Darling, reminded me of Donald Crombie's 1986 adaptation of Playing Beatie Bow – another Australian production that links a young woman's name with a children's game that defies the seemingly immutable laws of the universe. Where Beatie Bow was transported from the past to modern Sydney via a chant, 'playing Gracie Darling' involves youngsters communicating with the spirit world, where Darling may have been taken after a seance performed in a creaky old shack went terribly wrong. Because of course it does! It's a seance. In a shack. Just once I'd love to see a 'talk to the dead' scene involving Ouija boards and the like go swimmingly well, a bunch of spirit-communicators leaving the event with ear-to-ear smiles and newfound joie de vivre. But of course, the seance in this reasonably well-staged but very codified and derivative series involves the Ouija board catching on fire and the titular girl (Kristina Bogic) spitting out demonic-sounding dialogue, before disappearing from the face of the Earth in 1997. Jumping many years ahead, we follow Gracie's former bestie Joni (Morgana O'Reilly), who attended the seance and is now a child psychologist. In the first episode (this review encompasses the first three of six – all that was made available to the media) Joni receives a phone call, informing her that another girl has gone missing from that very same shack, where a bunch of kids were playing Gracie Darling. Ah yes, the past comes back to haunt! This moment establishes the show's very genre-ified dialogue, via lines such as 'It's happening again'. Similarly tired-sounding language is sprinkled by the writers (Nation and Anya Beyersdorf) throughout the series and delivered by the poker-faced cast. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Occult activities becoming a form of adolescent recreation thematically aligns this show with Danny and Michael Philippou's excellent horror film Talk To Me, in which teenagers pass around an embalmed severed hand and channel a cranky spirit. But the Philippou brothers did something interesting by associating occult practices with other forms of recreational risk-taking, implying that consulting spirits and taking hits from a bong are different forms of the same ancient desire: to transcend the realm of the ordinary (which is exactly what I told my mother when she caught me smoking pot as a teenager). In Playing Gracie Darling, the occult element just feels cribbed from a cobweb-covered playbook. Likewise for the correlation between a core mystery and the troubled past of the protagonist, who, in order to fix a contemporary problem, must address something unresolved inside themselves – an oldie but a goodie. Another key player is local cop Jay (Rudi Dharmalingam, from the ABC's sublime drama Wakefield), who was also part of that seance – because small town, because narratively convenient. The supporting cast also includes Dame Harriet Walter as Joni's mum, Pattie, and Celia Pacquola as Ruth Darling, whose daughter Frankie is the latest person to disappear. Another very familiar element in this show concerns a situation brewing in the background that affects the local community, which serves as a scaffold for the main plot. Recently, in Last Days of the Space Age, there was an ongoing workers dispute at a power plant, and in The Family Next Door, a controversial real estate property development. Here, it's some recently constructed wind turbines which are disrupting the flight paths of birds and – some citizens believe – triggering health issues in the local community. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Atmospherically, Playing Gracie Darling is directed assuredly by Jonathan Brough (whose recent work includes Bay of Fires, Rosehaven and The End). And it is quite well acted, with a particularly strong, grounding lead performance from Morgana O'Reilly, who had a small but memorable role as a hotel employee in The White Lotus season three. But the writing in this series comes across as very self-conscious and overall the show feels fusty and antiquated. Playing Gracie Darling is on Paramount+ now.
News.com.au
12-08-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Morgana O'Reilly stars in haunting new Aussie series that will hook viewers from the first scene
An eerie new Aussie series is upon us and it will have you hooked from the very first scene. Paramount+ Australia's original new series Playing Gracie Darling is a haunting tale that follows 14-year-old Joni and her three friends who hold a seance in an abandoned house. It ends in horrific circumstances when one of the girls, Gracie Darling, suffers a seizure before mysteriously vanishing days later. Fast-forward 27 years, and another girl has gone missing after a new group of teenagers hold a copycat seance during a spooky 'game' locals call Playing Gracie Darling, whereby they re-enact the ill-fated spiritual gathering from decades ago. The six-part mystery, starring The White Lotus Season 3's Morgana O'Reilly, is filled with supernatural undertons. 'I love a ghost story, so it was so up my alley. Give me a mystery and a ghost story any day,' O'Reilly tells ahead of the series premiere on Paramount+ on August 14. 'I love a ghost story and I love [series creator] Miranda [Nation]'s writing. She's really got the most wonderful mind. She makes such complex female characters that are just loveable and challenging.' Adds O'Reilly: 'I ask people for their ghost stories. As an actor, you hang out and see a lot while waiting, and that's often one of my icebreakers: 'Tell me your ghost stories', because I feel like there's some kind of intrinsic connection between that mysticism, ghosts and tarot cards and crystals and all that. There is a connection between that and storytelling and being an artist and being creative. So I love that stuff and I unashamedly say so.' In the series, O'Reilly plays the adult version of Joni, who is now a child psychologist who returns to her sleepy hometown to try to solve the new mystery while confronting her past. 'They're really full-on, big emotions,' she says of playing her character. 'She goes home to try and investigate, but she has to face a lot of demons. She has to face a lot of skeletons in the closet and ghosts, figuratively and literally.' 'It's a total joy to dig deep and play a complex character. She's a kind of mush of contradictions and she's so many things, so I had a lot of fun finding where she lives in my body and where she is similar to me and where she's different to me and getting under her skin.' Speaking of getting under her skin, not only did New Zealand-born O'Reilly have to adopt the Aussie accent, she also had to get used to the local creepy-crawlies when filming in the Hawkesbury River region in NSW. 'The landscape is stunning. The forest was just really magic and scary – and full of leeches,' she laughs. 'Oh my God, the leeches were so awful. That was the most challenging. At one point, one of our camera operators had the steady cam and we are walking through the bush [in a scene] and then he goes, 'Cut' and pulls off his boot and pulls off this leech. He said he could feel it latch on just before they called action and they had to carry on the shot.' O'Reilly is no stranger to filming on location. She recently filmed Season 3 of the award-winning series The White Lotus in Thailand along with a stellar ensemble featuring Parker Posey, Jason Isaacs, Leslie Bibb and Patrick Schwarzenegger. 'Hanging out and trying to be social and getting over my own impostor syndrome for the first couple of weeks, that's an important lesson, but now I feel like they're my friends,' she says. 'And then of course, once it comes on air and you get to prove to yourself and everybody like, 'I was in that.' It's amazing. The biggest challenge is just trying to keep convincing myself I had a right to be there. 'Working on set with these amazing actors, there's the professional side and there's the social side, just like being in the presence of these wonderfully epic creatives. Not just the actors, but the producers and the director and the creators. The costume and make-up and design, so working with them was amazing.' And, of course, O'Reilly has filmed many projects in Australia too. The actress even lived on our shores for eight years, during which she starred in Neighbours from 2013 to 2015, playing the sassy and spoilt Naomi Canning. The beloved Aussie soap wraps this December after a 40-year run. However, it has been cancelled before so O'Reilly has hope for another resurrection. 'Part of me wouldn't be surprised if somehow it rose from the dead again,' she says. 'It's sad that it's gone. It's profound and it's special. It's like losing a grandparent, I guess inevitable.' 'Nothing lasts forever, but it's important that we remember how special it was and how much it contributed culturally, creatively to the landscape of storytelling in Australia, but also its representation of the LGBTQ+ community of diversity inclusion. 'It really has been a show that has strove to be progressive in the confines of being a really mainstream soap opera. It's done the best it can do. Let's celebrate it.'
