Lantana

This is one of those rarities, a movie which walks the tightrope between being a perfect drama and an absorbing mystery and does it spectacularly well. The first hour is dedicated to establishing the various characters like the cop, his wife, the woman he is fooling around with, her estranged husband, the neighbors of the women etc. The interplay between the characters and the different situations are very fascinating. The second half is about the disappearance of one of the characters and how the others interact and react. The acting is brilliant with Anthony Lapaglia surprisingly getting a meatier role and performing much better than Geoffrey Rush. The screenplay is simply fantastic. It is a travesty that this was not nominated for any of the major awards. perhaps it being from Australia was a reason. This is a must watch movie for buffs who love their drama with a touch of intrigue. 4 out of 5. Very well made movie.

This film shows Australia, not as a sunny soap opera land, but life as it happens. There were many twists and turns throughout and showed just how small a community can be. Particularly enjoyed the sharp Aussie wit and black humour that flowed with the unfolding of the plot.

Antony LaPaglia plays a believable role and as sub plot you see his character change in the space of two hours.

All in all a very enjoyable film.

Most successful Australian films are quintessentially Australian. From Walkabout in 1970 via Peter Weir's pictures such as Picnic at Hanging Rock; The Last Wave and Gallipoli, right up to releases around Lantana such as The Tracker; Dirty Deeds; Rabbit-Proof Fence; Aussie Rules; The Dish and the Steve Irwin vehicle, The Crocodile Hunter Collision Course. Their appeal is partly based on an exploration of Australian culture or rather a contrast of cultures either within Australia or with the rest of the world. Like much of British Cinema, Australian Cinema has taken refuge in nationhood.

Lantana is different. Although it is set in present day Sydney it could, with the exception of the film's metaphorical title, be set in any Western urban conurbation. The film does not depend on either supposed Aussie character traits or well-known locations. Postcard Sydney is eschewed in favour of suburbia and mid-town. It is also bold as, although it contains a crime detection story, the film is primarily about an interwoven set of relationships gone wrong. The police investigation does not begin until halfway through the film, and this allows the relationships to be explored in detail before the more conventional narrative begins.

Leon (Anthony LaPaglia) is a morose police detective whose marriage to Sonja (the excellent Kerry Armstrong) is failing. His brief affair with Jane (Rachael Blake) in the opening sequence, is a symptom not a cause. Sonja confides her worries of the affair to Dr. Somers (Barbara Hershey), whose own relationship is soured by suspicion and tragedy. The only solid relationship is that of Jane's neighbours, whose domestic circumstances are the most difficult. This background unfolds in the first half of the film and the individual relationships are then laid over the plot allowing both an intertwining and explanation. The strength of the film is that as the characters have already been well realised, so their actions and emotions can be understood in the second half of the film. This is territory often reserved to a good novel, and is rarely brought off in the cinema and it is so well done here that a couple of narrative co-incidences can be forgiven.

The lantana is a large native Australian flowering plant, whose attractive and benign appearance conceals a thorny interior. The shrub is cleverly threaded into the plot and serves as a reminder that in relationships, things might not be all they seem and that care is needed to prevent hurt. In keeping with the film's realistic style there are no feel-good resolutions but the emotional intensity carries it to an ending of some hope rather than desolation.

This is a complex drama. Although the film involves a murder, the story is more the exploration of a number of interconnected relationships.

The film starts with a woman's body lying in a lantana bush, but we don't know who it is until the end. The story builds up to that point, and centres on a quartet of families starting with Leon Zat (Anthony La Paglia), a police detective, and his wife Sonja (Kerry Armstrong).

"Lantana", the title of the film, refers to the noxious weed that grows like crazy and eventually strangles and entangles everything else in the garden - it's the perfect metaphor for the way all the various relationships are being strangled and entangled by infidelity, deception and unhappiness.

The structure of the film is similar to Robert Altman's "Short Cuts" where different stories intersect at critical times.

Although the film has a sense of mystery, I found "Lantana" just too serious and humourless. Unlike "Short Cuts", there really isn't a light touch in the whole thing. Anthony La Paglia's Leon Zat makes the characters played by Nicholas Cage seem deliriously happy by comparison. I am also wary in Australian movies of scenes set in psychiatrist's offices; it often allows the 'meaningful' dialogue to be delivered in very large chunks.

After a while, for me at any rate, the interconnectivity - where no meeting is random - comes across as just a little too laboured. What saves "Lantana" is that everyone plays it low-key - the actors give the movie class.

The brilliant Barbara Hershey has competition for attention from two other women: Kerry Armstrong and Rachael Blake. Kerry Armstrong is one of the most interesting actors in Australian film and television, and she ages beautifully.

The film steps up a notch when the mystery kicks in about halfway through, and it becomes partly a police procedural.

"Lantana" was loved up by the critics and won every Australian film award going at the time it was released. It is the sort of smart, multi-layered film that the cognoscenti could discuss at some length over lattes on Sunday morning.

The film is well made and the acting is flawless, but it seems interminably stretched out, an effect aided by the chilled out score. My main problem with "Lantana" is that it seems to self-consciously scream out "How clever is my script?" I can see the gears turning.

In this starkly realistic examination of love and infidelity among the thirtysomething crowd from down under we learn that you may desire to cheat on your spouse, but it's better if you don't.

Leon Zat, a police detective played with an original and striking demeanor by Anthony LaPaglia, cheats on his wife and finds that his adultery compromises not only his marriage but his performance on the job. He becomes irritable and flies off the handle at things of little importance, and becomes consumed with guilt.

He is not alone. The marriage of John Knox (Geoffrey Rush) and psychiatrist Valerie Somers (Barbara Hershey) is falling apart as Knox seeks something from the outside and Somers is torn apart with the suspicion that he is having a homosexual affair, perhaps with one of her clients. Meanwhile Jane O'May (Zat's adulteress played by Rachael Blake) finds that she needs a man, or maybe two, other than her estranged husband. Even Sonja Zat (Kerry Armstrong) feels the pressure and yearns to feel attractive, perhaps with younger men.

More than halfway through we have an apparent murder and an investigation during the course of which some of the adulteries come to light and cause the participants to examine themselves and their lives closely.

Andrew Dovell wrote the subtle, richly attired script, full of penetrating dialogue and an uncompromising veracity, adapting it from his play Speaking in Tongues. Ray Lawrence directed in an unusual but compelling manner in which the scenes are sharply focused and cut to linger in our minds. Again and again I was startled with just how exactly right was something a character said or did. Lawrence's exacting attention to detail gives the film a textured and deeply layered feel so that one has the sense of real life fully lived. The cast is uniformly excellent although LaPaglia stands out because of his most demanding role. His performance is one of the best I have seen in recent years. The only weakness in the film is a somewhat lethargic start, partially caused by Lawrence's cinéma vérité scene construction and editing. What he likes to do is lead us to a realization along with the characters and then punctuate the experience by lingering on the scene, or in other cases by cutting quickly away. Often what other directors might show, he leaves to our imagination, and at other times he shows something seemingly trivial which nonetheless stays in our mind. John Knox's affair, for example, is not shown. Jane O'May and her husband's reconciliation is left to our mind's eye. Yet the scene with Valerie Somers in the lighted telephone booth (with graffiti) is shown at length and then what happens next is not. These are interesting directorial choices.

The ending comes upon us, as it sometimes should, unexpectedly, but then resonates so that we can see and feel the resolution. Not everything is tied up. Again we are left in some cases to use our own imagination.

This original film, one of the best of the new millennium I have seen, stayed with me long after they ran the closing credits. It is well worth the two hours.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)