The Leader
Viewer Advice: Contains strong-impact mental health and suicide themes
A remarkable Tim Blake Nelson and Vera Farmiga are out of this world as Heaven’s Gate co-founders Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Lu Nettles.
In 1972, Marshall Applewhite overdoses on a bottle of pills and ends up in hospital in the care of nurse Bonnie Lu Nettles, a spiritual seeker feeling empty in her personal life. Dubbing themselves “Do” and “Ti” as their sense of cosmic connection escalates into a Messianic bond, they manifest a doctrine that fuses biblical prophecy with new-age UFO utopianism and strict asexuality, drawing other broken souls into their orbit. Their goal: to leave their weak flesh behind and ascend to the stars. The reality of their Heaven’s Gate cult was grimmer: after Nettles died of cancer in 1985, Applewhite infamously staged a 1997 mass suicide together with 38 of his followers.
Having grown up in San Diego, not far from the Heaven’s Gate compound, writer/director Michael Gallagher channels a lifelong fascination and a decade-plus of research into this darkly gripping true-crime drama. Its documentary-like authenticity frames two unnerving lead performances from Tim Blake Nelson and Vera Farmiga, while Jim Parsons and Simon Rex (Magic Farm, MIFF 2025) shine in support as loyal believers. Driving The Leader is the urgent question of why – and, in answer, the film becomes both a compelling psychological study and a chilling psychological horror.
“Creepy and powerful … The Leader is the most potent drama I’ve seen about life inside a cult since Martha Marcy May Marlene.” – Variety
Tickets
For information about the accessible services being offered at MIFF, please visit miff.com.au/access. If you require any access service, such as wheelchair/step-free access, for any MIFF session, please call 03 8660 4888 or email boxoffice@miff.com.au to book your ticket.
You might also like ...
The Iranian state has imprisoned her body; now it wants her innermost self. Under torture, can a rebel teacher defend her values, emotions and memories?
A top-notch cast led by Bill Skarsgård and Dacre Montgomery play out a hair-raising real-life 1970s hostage situation in this blackly comedic thriller from Gus Van Sant.
An Iraqi mother meets a US marine, years after his squad killed her loved ones. Both suffer from the knowledge that bullets can never be un-fired.