This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 9:54 am and is filed under Drama, J. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Director: Ray Lawrence
Starring: Laura Linney, Gabriel Byrne, Tatea Reilly, Sean Rees-Wemyss, Deborra-Lee Furness, John Howard, Eva Lazzaro, Maya Daniels
This is a slow-moving character-driven Australian drama that is long on acting but a little short on a story and takes way too long to get going. Lawrence’s direction is patient and effective and the moral debate raised by the story is interesting, but gets entangled by too many subplots and too many characters. It is still enjoyable but desperately needed a sharper focus to be a really good film.
Jindabyne is a small Australian town where mechanic Stewart Kane (Gabriel Byrne) lives with his young son (Rees-Wemyss) and his wife, Claire (Laura Linney) who struggles to get along Stewart’s meddling mother. Stewart and a group of buddies go fishing and come across the body of a young woman in the river. They decide not to return to report this until their weekend is over and this decision touches off a firestorm throughout the community. The story is further complicated by racism and past issues in Claire and Stewart’s relationship.
This is a good movie that could have been great, if they could have sharpened that editing knife and decided which story they were really telling. Still, it is well-acted, has a mood that this a little like a rural, Australian Mystic River, and has a story that begs discussion. Worth seeing? I thought so. Worth recommending? I’m less sure on that, but if this review has peeked your interest, then you will likely enjoy it.
