Paradise Hills

This movie is so eye-poppingly gorgeous and unusual that it will take you a while to notice that it doesn't make a lot of logical sense, but it's sure diverting to watch. "Girls in captivity" is an old setup that's been explored in particularly seamy detail in many vintage B exploitation films. But no girls' prison has ever looked like this one: In a Versailles-ish mansion surrounded by an Alice in Wonderland-esque rose garden, the Paradise Hills inmates languidly do floor exercises or submit to makeovers, clad in all-white uniforms that look like Edwardian bondage gear. They sleep soundly in rows of beds swathed with pink netting -- so very soundly, in fact, that Uma and Amarna soon get suspicious and wonder just what's happening to them at night while they do.

There's a hazy side plot about "Uppers" and "Lowers," the castes of the dystopian YA-like futuristic society in which these characters live -- as well as a few narrative twists that throw into doubt what viewers may have figured out by the film's final third. But the jumbled plot passes by pleasantly enough, not distracting from the movie's key pleasure: great young female actors in absolutely stunning costumes on a transcendently gorgeous set. It's not enough to turn this movie into a great one, but it's wild, weird fun while it lasts.