Lantana

"Lantana" is a well-made film with good performances all-around and a fine script. It's nice seeing Anthony LaPaglia, a damn fine actor, using his native accent. I was really hoping to see more of Geoffrey Rush, since he's one of my favorite actors, but it's an ensemble effort and he puts more than his own two cents into the film. I can't say much about the movie, other than it was engrossing and kept my attention. However, the plot is not completely original. I've seen other movies about infidelity in different relationships, and the different characters interlocking through their infidelities (I think that's the plot of every Edward Burns' film). So I didn't feel as compelled by the film as I expected to be. But it's still, by no means, a bad film. And I'd recommend it to anyone in the mood for a well-acted character drama.

My score: 7 (out of 10)

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.

"Lantana" is one of those rare films which which transcends entertainment with meaningful messages, however subliminal, while avoiding the dumbing-down, flocking, hype, titillation, and other excesses of the usual Tinseltown product and relying solely on good story telling. The film uses the nonlinear Magnoia-esque jigsaw puzzle approach showing a piece of each player one at a time while methodically completing the final puzzle picture. Though the film involves a cop, a shrink, a missing woman, infidelity, adultery, grief, suspicion, etc., "Lantana" isn't about any of these things; a fact which is made clear in the end when the final puzzle piece is dropped into place. A must see for mature realists into serious drama.

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.

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.