The best thing that can be said about Holy Smoke, the source for a forthcoming film by Jane Campion (Sweetie, The Piano), is that it's a real novel, too sophisticated in language and structure to be written off as a hardcover screenplay or a facile novelization. While the Campion sisters never approach the psychological insight needed to make their unlikely story convincing, they have a gift for flaky, overheated exoticism that always lends it vibrancy and pace, even as it undermines the book's more serious intent. Compressed over three days during a blistering Australian heat wave, Holy Smoke concerns Ruth Baron, an impressionable 20-year-old seduced by the teachings of an Indian guru. Her parents, concerned that she's been brainwashed, call on an American deprogrammer and cult specialist, P.J. Waters, to wrest their daughter from her newfound spiritual bliss. Instead, he becomes sexually obsessed with her. Alternating chapters, Baron and Waters describe their intense one-on-one sessions from vastly different perspectives, yet both are acutely aware of the power struggle taking place and expert at developing strategies to tip the balance. Holy Smoke is most effective when it details Waters' unusual profession, which involves the eradication of any belief system, cult or not—or, as he euphemistically puts it, "letting the mind loosen so it can think for itself." But as Baron's sensuality gradually works to derail the process, the Campions fall back on a scenario that's far too close to The Piano, a vaguely feminist tale about a man who presumes to control a woman only to have his aggressions turned on him. Jane Campion's prodigious talents behind the camera may result in a more convincing translation on film—The Piano, mesmerizing as it is, sounds ridiculous on paper—but as a tastefully erotic novel, it's awfully silly.