Picnic at Hanging Rock (film)

Picnic at Hanging Rock was a commercial and critical success, and helped draw international attention to the then-emerging Australian New Wave of cinema.

Plot[edit]

On Valentine's Day, 1900, students from Appleyard College, a girls' private school in Victoria, Australia, embark on a picnic to Hanging Rock to celebrate St. Valentine, led by teachers Miss Greta McCraw and Mlle. de Poitiers.


Sara, a quiet orphan who has been separated from her older brother, "Bertie", is forced to stay behind with the sheepish Miss Lumley and the school's headmistress, the harsh Mrs. Appleyard. Sara has a deep attachment to Miranda, who is her roommate.


At the Hanging Rock, students Miranda, Marion, Irma, and the unenthusiastic Edith leave the picnic to explore the area. They pass a young Englishman, Michael Fitzhubert, and his Australian friend, Albert Crundell, who watch them cross a stream. The girls soon climb the Rock and fall asleep under a strange influence. Edith awakens in terror and begins screaming. She flees back to the picnic as the other girls proceed into a hidden crevice of the Hanging Rock.


The picnic group of students, having all also fallen asleep, are alarmed when they wake up to find Miss McCraw and the three girls missing. Upon returning to the college without the girls, the students and Sara are plunged into despair. A police search yields no clues, despite Edith's fragmented accounts of the girls' disappearance, seeing Miss McCraw running up to the Rock without her skirt, and seeing a mysterious red cloud.


After having nightmares about the girls' disappearance, Michael is haunted by the mystery and conducts his own search for the girls with Albert, leaving paper notes along the Rock trails. Albert relates a similar dream, in which his little sister Sara address him by his nickname, "Bertie", and disappears into a garden after saying goodbye to him. Despite Albert's protests, Michael stays at the Rock overnight and finds Irma alive inside a crevice the next day. Irma wakes up days later with no memory of her disappearance, despite a week having passed since she went missing. She cannot say what happened to Miranda, Marion, or Miss McCraw.


The disappearance of the two other girls and Miss McCraw causes a scandal, leading to students leaving the school and spreading unrest. As the school's reputation suffers, Mrs. Appleyard informs Sara that her guardian has not contacted the college in the last six months and her tuition has not been paid, signaling the cancellation of extracurricular activities, such as dancing and art. Mrs. Appleyard later returns at night to tell Sara that she will be returned to the orphanage. Already distressed by Miranda's disappearance, Sara is further traumatized by the cruel nature of her teachers. Irma, who is recovered but amnesiac, is to be sent back to Europe to be reunited with her parents, but not before facing the wrath of her classmates, who demand answers about the missing girls. The students all leave the college for the summer, and are sent back to live with their families.


Mrs. Appleyard then tells Mlle. de Poitiers that Sara's guardian had come to collect her, and that Sara left early in the morning. That evening, the two have dinner together, although Mrs. Appleyard ignores Mlle. de Poitiers' attempts to ask whether or not Sara will be joining them for another school year.


Sara's body is later discovered in the greenhouse; she is believed to have jumped from the roof. The gardener rushes into Mrs. Appleyard's office to explain the tragedy and finds her sitting calmly at her desk, wearing funeral attire, her suitcases packed. A voiceover explains that Mrs. Appleyard, facing the collapse of her school and haunted by the events, was found dead at the base of Hanging Rock, having apparently fallen while climbing it.


Michael frequently imagines Miranda in his dreams and visions, but her presence is always replaced by the real-life presence of a white swan. Albert does not see his sister, Sara, again.


During a flashback to the picnic day, the voiceover states that the disappearances of Miranda, Marion, and Miss McCraw remain unsolved mysteries, continuing to haunt the local community.

Theatrical release[edit]

The film premiered on 8 August 1975, at the Hindley Cinema Complex in Adelaide. It was well received by audiences and critics alike.^[6] It grossed $5,120,000 in box office sales in Australia.^[11] This is equivalent to $40,863,759 in 2022.


In 1998, Weir removed seven minutes from the film for a theatrical re-release, creating a shorter 107-minute director's cut.^[4]