| The Clearing | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Drama |
| Created by | Elise McCredie, Matt Cameron |
| Based on | In the Clearing by J. P. Pomare |
| Written by |
|
| Directed by | |
| Starring | |
| Composer | Mark Bradshaw |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Original language | English |
| No. of episodes | 8 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
|
| Producer | Jude Troy |
| Running time | 48–49 minutes |
| Production company | Wooden Horse |
| Original release | |
| Network | Disney+ |
| Release | 24 May 2023 |
The Clearing is an Australian psychological thriller miniseries produced for Disney+ and inspired by the dark story of a real-life cult with a female leader. The series premiered on 24 May 2023 on Disney+ and Hulu. Directed by Jeffrey Walker and Gracie Otto, it is based on the book In the Clearing by J. P. Pomare, a fictionalised account of the Australian cult group The Family, [1] and stars Miranda Otto, Teresa Palmer, and Guy Pearce.
A woman is forced to face the demons of her past in order to prevent a cult from kidnapping children. [2]
| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date [3] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "The Season of Unfoldment" | Jeffrey Walker | Matt Cameron | May 24, 2023 |
| 2 | "Kindred" | Jeffrey Walker | Elise McCredie | May 24, 2023 |
| 3 | "Suffer the Little Children" | Gracie Otto | Matt Cameron | May 31, 2023 |
| 4 | "The Foundlings" | Gracie Otto | Elise McCredie | June 7, 2023 |
| 5 | "Maitreya" | Gracie Otto | Elise McCredie | June 14, 2023 |
| 6 | "The Pied Piper" | Gracie Otto | Matt Cameron & Osamah Sami | June 21, 2023 |
| 7 | "This Too Shall Pass" | Jeffrey Walker | Matt Cameron | June 28, 2023 |
| 8 | "Island" | Jeffrey Walker | Elise McCredie & Osamah Sami | July 5, 2023 |
The series is produced by Wooden Horse and based on the best selling crime-thriller In the Clearing by J. P. Pomare and the real-life group The Family and their charismatic leader Anne Hamilton-Byrne. The series was adapted by Elise McCredie, Matt Cameron and Osamah Sami. Directed by Jeffrey Walker and Gracie Otto, the producer is Jude Troy and the executive producers are McCredie, Cameron and Walker with Richard Finlayson and Elizabeth Bradley. [4] [5]
Teresa Palmer, Miranda Otto and Guy Pearce were confirmed as part of the cast in July 2022. [6]
Principal photography began in Victoria, Australia in July 2022. [7]
The series will be broadcast on Hulu in the United States and as a Star Original on Disney+ throughout the world from Wednesday, 24 May 2023 with new episodes being released weekly thereafter on Wednesdays. [8]
The series has an 89% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 18 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Deriving extra flavor from its Australian setting and Miranda Otto's unsettling performance, The Clearing is an eerie thriller with plenty to recommend." [9] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 61 out of 100 based on 7 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [10]
The limited miniseries was nominated in the Best Miniseries category at the AACTA Awards, with Teresa Palmer receiving a nomination for Best Lead Actress in a Drama. [11]
Guy Edward Pearce is an Australian actor. He started his career portraying Mike Young in the Australian television series Neighbours. Pearce received international attention for his breakout role in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) and subsequently took starring roles in Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential (1997), Christopher Nolan's Memento (2000) and Simon Wells's The Time Machine (2002). He is also known for his performances in the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road (2009), Kathryn Bigelow's war drama The Hurt Locker (2009) and Tom Hooper's historical drama The King's Speech (2010). He has appeared in TED 2023, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant (2017) as Peter Weyland, the Marvel action film Iron Man 3 (2013) as Aldrich Killian, and the historical biopic Mary Queen of Scots (2018) as William Cecil.
Miranda Otto is an Australian actress. She is the daughter of actors Barry and Lindsay Otto and the paternal half-sister of actress Gracie Otto. Otto began her acting career in 1986 at age 18 and appeared in a variety of independent and major studio films in Australia. She made her major film debut in Emma's War in 1987 in which she played a teenager who moves to Australia's bush country during World War II.
Teresa Mary Palmer is an Australian actress. She began her career with roles in Bedtime Stories (2008), The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010), Take Me Home Tonight (2011), and I Am Number Four (2011). She received further recognition for starring in the films Warm Bodies (2013), Lights Out (2016), Hacksaw Ridge (2016), and Berlin Syndrome (2017). She also starred in, co-wrote, and co-produced the drama film The Ever After (2014), with her husband Mark Webber. From 2018 to 2022, Palmer starred as Diana Bishop in the supernatural drama series A Discovery of Witches.
The Family, also known as the Santiniketan Park Association or the Great White Brotherhood, was an Australian New Age group formed in the mid-1960s under the leadership of Anne Hamilton-Byrne. The group taught a mixture of Western and Eastern religious doctrines, with Hamilton-Byrne claiming to have been a reincarnation of Jesus. It has widely been described as a cult.
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Gracie Otto is an Australian filmmaker and actress. She made her feature-length directing debut with the 2013 documentary The Last Impresario about prolific British theatre impresario and film producer Michael White. She has also directed a variety of screen content such as television commercial videos (TCVs), shorts, television series, feature films and documentaries.
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