Lantana director
Ray Lawrence mines the source text of a Raymond Carver short story — one of the
same strands that made up 1993’s Short Cuts,
fans of Robert Altman
will certainly remember — for Jindabyne,
a so-so melodrama that skates by on the focused emotional investment of its starring
leads, Academy Award nominee Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne.
,<br />
a former race car driver now worn down by life, leads pals Carl (John Howard),<br />
Rocco (Stelios Yiakmis) and Billy (Simon Stone) out into the wild, where they come<br />
across the body of a young Aboriginal woman. Deciding it’s too late in the day<br />
for them to hike back to the road and report their tragic find, they delay<br />
taking any action. The next morning, instead of making the long trek back, they<br />
spend the day fishing. When the men finally return home and report finding<br />
the body, all hell breaks loose. Their wives can’t understand how they could<br />
have gone fishing with the dead girl right there in the water — she needed<br />
their help. The men are confounded — the girl was already dead, they argue, so there<br />
was nothing they could do for her.<o:p></p>
<p></o:p>Stewart’s wife Claire (Linney), already troubled by the<br />
discovery that she’s pregnant and beset by a meddling mother-in-law (Betty<br />
Lucas), is the last to find out about the situation, and she becomes increasingly<br />
distressed over her husband’s callous behavior. To her it’s heartbreakingly emblematic<br />
of an already unraveling marriage. As public opinion builds against the actions of the men,<br />
their certainty about themselves and the decision they made at the river is<br />
challenged. They cannot undo what they have done. Only Claire understands that<br />
something fundamental is not being addressed. Determined to make things right again — not only<br />
for her own peace of mind, but karmically as well — Claire tries to reach out<br />
to the family of the murdered girl and offer them her condolences and<br />
explanation, in the process setting herself not only against<br />
her own family and friends but also those of the dead girl. Her marriage is<br />
taken to the brink and her peaceful life with Stewart and their young son hangs<br />
in the balance.</p>
<p><o:p></o:p>In relocating Carver’s “So Much Water so Close to Home” to <st1:country-region><st1:place>Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region>,<br />
Lawrence and screenwriter Beatrix Christian also add a racial element to the<br />
narrative. This gives the film a bit of a different flavor, but <span style=)
the chief
problem is one of scattershot focus and stalled dramatic device; this movie is
serial dawdler, and it wrecks much of the accrued downhill momentum that might
otherwise build up in its favor. Both pros, Linney and Byrne give us delicate
shades of how things have gone astray, even if the rest of the movie overcooks Carl,
Rocco and Billy’s relationships with their significant others. Jindabyne was highly praised in its
native country, where it was nominated for nine Australian Film Institute
Awards, include Best Film, Best Actor and Actress, Best Director, Best Adapted
Screenplay and Best Cinematography. As is, though, it remains just a bit too distant
and overdrawn to succeed as the tone poem of heartache that the premise and
evocative staging suggests.
in a regular Amray case, and is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with
a Dolby digital 5.1 soundtrack, and optional French and Spanish subtitles. The
DVD features a small clutch of deleted scenes that runs around six minutes in
total, as well as a hearty collection of trailers, but the main supplemental bonus
is a solid, half-hour making-of featurette that delves into production choices
big and small.
To order the movie via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) B+ (Disc)