Lantana
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Movie Reviews of Lantana
Movie Review: A Great Character-Driven Piece of Filmmaking
Summary: 5 Stars
As 'Lantana' begins, we see through a long camera shot a dead body in the midst of thick shrubbery. We don't know who this person is or how the death happened. But we will learn this and much, much more.Australian policeman Leon Zat (Anthony LaPaglia) is a man stumbling through life. He is in poor health, he is cheating on his wife Sonja (Kerry Armstrong), and can no longer relate to his sons and their problems. Sonja, having her own problems, seeks the help of a psychiatrist named Valerie (Barbara Hershey). Valerie has just written a book that chronicles the death of her young daughter. Valerie's husband John (Geoffrey Rush) is distant, but hiding an inner anger. At one point in the film, Valerie confronts him, telling him that he's not dealing with their daughter's death at all. He tells her that he is, he just doesn't have to write a book about it.
Zat's lover Jane (Racheal Blake) is a strange woman who is separated from her husband. She wants nothing to do with him. Living next door to Jane is the only happily married couple in the film, Nik and Paula. Or are they really happily married?
The characters and the situation I've described sounds like a bad soap opera. Far from it. Director Ray Lawrence takes all of these seemingly unrelated characters and shows us not only what they have in common, but how our lives can turn out if we're not careful.
It is surprising how easy the plot is to follow with all these characters. You're never sitting there watching the film thinking, "Now, who is this man?" Concentrate instead on what the characters are thinking and feeling. By doing this, you can tap into the depth of the characters and their sad and sometimes tragic lives. 'Lantana' is, if nothing else, a powerful look into the potential darkness that hides in each of us. But the film is much more.
'Lantana' is not as interested in solving the mystery of who was killed and why as it is in bringing the audience to understand what's going on in the heads of these amazingly lifelike characters. 'Lantana' is an amazing film. It's not a flashy film, but you'll think about it long after the final scene, which by the way is a microcosm of the entire film. Amazing stuff.
Running time 2 hours 1 minute
Movie Review: Top Notch Film !!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I thought this award-winning Australian movie was incredibly well-done and I am still mulling it over days after seeing it. Every character was fully developed and every performance by this stellar group of actors was outstanding. The confluence of the lives of the various characters was natural and did not seem at all contrived....the movie really was about their interactions and relationships, an examination of deep issues, not a murder mystery as some might think prior to seeing it. Much of the film appeared to try to mislead us as characters who never might have met each other became intimately acquainted. Leon is married to Sonja but sleeping with Jane who lives next door to Nik and Paul. Sonja is seeing a psychiatrist whose disappearance Leon investigates.Suspicion abounds in "Lantana," as it does in real life. Intimacy and its accompanying trust is scarce, except for Nik and Paula. Most of the characters demonstrate that once happiness is no longer part of a relationship, people move through their lives on auto-pilot, their lives routine and predictable.
Much is hidden beneath the surface here - "lantana" is a tangled nuisance shrub in Australia, with hidden thorns masked by beautiful flowers....much as the unpleasant parts of life can be hidden by what is on the surface.
I liked what James Berardinelli said about this movie: " Being alive and living are not the same......What constitutes happiness - is it the presence of pleasure of the absence of pain? What is the strongest foundation for a lasting marriage - trust, love, familiarity, or grief?"
When I read the reviews, I was afraid "Lantana" was going to be confusing but it wasn't at all. The characters were so well introduced and developed that it was easy to follow the story right from the beginning. I really appreciated the short wrap-up at the end, showing us what all the characters were doing after the main part of the story ended.
This is the best movie I have seen all year!
Movie Review: Emotional upheaval, passion and murder. Great film!
Summary: 5 Stars
This 2001 Australian film is about relationships and intersecting lives. Lantana is a plant with delicate leaves and sharp brambles which was transported into Australia and has now run wild. The screenwriting is making the same point as the passions and frustrations of the characters take over their personas.A detective, played by Anthony LaPaglia, is having an affair. His wife is going to a psychiatrist, played by Barbara Hershey. This psychiatrist has suffered her own emotional upheaval. Two years before her 11-year-old daughter was murdered and now her husband, played by Geoffrey Rush, is emotionally distant. In spite of her training, she's judgmental about extramarital affairs and the subject of trust. Add to this mix a happily married couple with three small children who live next door to the woman the detective has romanced, a female cop who is full of good advice, and several other characters who are looking for emotional connection and we have an interesting plot about how paths cross and how we're all connected.
And then one of the women disappears and murder is suspected. Everything quickens up as the murder investigation touches on each one of these people's lives. There's emotional upheaval throughout and the conclusion is logical and satisfying. I was swept into the story as well as the emotions. At times it felt so real that it became painful. The acting was outstanding and so was the directing. And by the end of the film I felt I personally knew all of the characters with all their strengths and weaknesses. Excellent drama and definitely recommended.
Movie Review: Thorns in the Garden
Summary: 5 Stars
When I first saw this taut moody thriller, I found it absorbing, but I simply could not identify with the characters (which are, nevertheless, portrayed by an excellent ensemble cast). Why, I thought, doesn't an otherwise intelligent woman--a psychiatrist yet--who has wrecked her car, and has walked several kilometers down a dark lonely road to a pay-phone, call 911 (or its Australian equivalent)? And I found Anthony Lapaglia simply unappealing. That was then.
I have since watched the film several more times. As for my first complaint, I have come to understand the onslaught of hysteria in the physician who is in need of healing herself. As for Anthony Lapaglia, I have gotten used to him (The traditional handsome Hollywood hero he isn't!) and have come to admire him in the television show, "Without A Trace." Therefore I have cast aside my initial prejudice and now fully appreciate what an accomplished actor he is in "Lantana." Lapaglia is an excellent foil for Geoffrey Rush, who turns in a moving performance as the twice-bereaved Professor of Law.
The director presents a series of relationships that are as thorny and thick as the lantana hedges--which seem alive with shrilling cicadas--that run riot along the Sidney roadsides. He also subtly misdirects the attention of the audience, which may think it has cleverly intuited the solution to the mystery, but gradually realizes that it has been skillfully guided through the tangled Lantana maze and sent down the wrong garden path altogether.
Movie Review: Satisfying and Somber
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm not sure how much play this Australian movie received in the U.S., but whatever it was it deserved more. In a great opening shot, it starts with the implication that there has been a murder, but it moves steadily into a study of people, basically four couples, and how they come together in ways that are deeply emotional and questioning. Anthony LaPaglia plays Leon Zat, a Sydney detective who is trying to find out who the body is and what happened. He's married, burned out, unhappy, with a lot of stuff ready to explode. He's having a joyless affair with a woman, but he loves his wife and kids. His wife sees the marriage falling apart and doesn't know what to do about it. She's been seeing a psychiatrist, but this woman has problems of her own...a daughter who was murdered and a husband who has become frozen emotionally.
I know, it sounds like some weekday soap. Believe me, it isn't. The actors are uniformily superb. Besides LaPaglia, there's Geoffrey Rush, Barbara Hersey, and a number of Australian actors who should be better known in the U.S. If you only know LaPaglia from cop and gangster roles, TV crime shows and as the thick-headed hood/nephew in The Client, you're in for a revelation. As good as LaPaglia is, Rush matches him in a performance that is subtle, ambiguous and sad.
It's a somber movie. I recommend it highly. The DVD transfer is very good